


Matters of Flax and Straw

by Mnara



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BAMF John, Case Fic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapped John, Let's Write Sherlock - Challenge 2, M/M, Minor Injuries, Post Reichenbach, Revisionist Fairy Tale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-17
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-20 10:52:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/886404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mnara/pseuds/Mnara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John wakes up in a basement and finds himself at the hands of a lunatic serial killer replaying his own mad version of a fairy tale. He knows Sherlock is on the case, but between the fallout of Sherlock's recent return from "The Fall" and the lack of evidence to work with, John is worried this story might not be a happy ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Let's Write Sherlock, Challenge #2:  
> "Choose a favorite fairy tale and rewrite it with characters from Sherlock."
> 
> This story is a modern-day retelling of a famous fairy tale, but it's more fun if you figure out which tale it is on your own.

John’s cheek is wet. Actually, his cheek feels like it might be lying in a small, cold puddle. Perhaps his whole body is in this puddle? Johns rolls onto his back with a wet slap of water. Yup. _Shit._

His brain feels dense and heavy like one of those tiny silver metal balls one finds in pinball machines. John used to play pinball at the uni. The best part, of course, was drawing back the piston and pinging that ball up the narrow channel and around the corner…but now John is feeling mostly sorry for that ball.

  _Shit, damn. Why is it always head injuries?_ John laments.

 He starts a mental list the long-term consequences of multiple concussions.

 When John opens his eyes, he finds himself in a dank, dark basement. The rank odour of mold fills his nostrils, and he swings his damp arm over this mouth and nose to ease the smell. Slowly, as his eyes adjust to the gloom, he sits up. It’s a warehouse basement, studded with concrete pillars to support the low, concrete ceiling. The large room is dotted with discarded pallets, piles of what John thinks are wet carpet tiles (that would explain the mold), empty plastic carboys, and a rusty forklift. A factory, then. An abandoned factory—how predictable. _Why can’t a concussion and a kidnapping ever end at a nice hotel? The Charing Cross hotel might be nice for a change…_ There are four small windows tucked up against the ceiling on one wall—the only source of light and also the source of the water, which drips generously down the wall, gathers, and collects in a steady stream toward the corner that John has been dumped in.

 John rubs his hand over the throbbing portion of his head as he slowly shifts to his knees. He’s got a disturbing bump, but no open wound. _They meant to disable me then, not hurt me,_ John thinks. There’s a weight around one ankle. He glances back to discover a heavy metal shackle and chain bolted around his ankle with an-honest-to-goodness bronze padlock—the old fashioned kind you might find on a pirate’s chest or in a medieval dungeon. John rolls his eyes. His captor’s choice of restraint and  prison is suggestive of a person who’s either (a) highly attracted to romance and drama (John thinks perhaps Moriarty?), or (b) stuck several hundred years in the past, or (c) low on modern resources…or (d) all of the above. He registers that he’s thinking like Sherlock would, of course: deducing his situation.

 Then, John’s mind clears and it hits him. _Sherlock!?_

 John pushes off the concrete and climbs to his feet, fighting through the dizzy spell and forcing his eyes to focus. Sherlock must be here with him somewhere. He takes in the details and searches the basement for the lithe, familiar figure. Nothing, nothing. But wait. John stumbles forward to the end of his chain and leans around a large pile of stacked pallets. As John stretches, what looks like a pair of shoes materializes into a full body—still breathing—sprawled out on the floor about 25 metres away. The body is clad in a long black coat, but John’s sure it’s not Sherlock. He squints and crouches for a different angle. No, the frame is wrong; Sherlock is long and slender, and while his shoulders are broad, this bloke’s are much broader. He is a stocky man, with short legs and a long torso, and John can see fat fingers poking out from too-long sleeves. The Sherlock side of his brain kicks-in at that detail: not his own coat, then.

 John is about to call out, but then, who is this person? Friend or foe? John hates not having backup. _Where is Sherlock?_ John’s sure Sherlock isn’t in the room with him and the stranger, so he drags himself ( _This shackle must weigh at least twenty pounds!_ ) back to where he awoke and inspects the ring on the wall where his chain is bolted. _Well, that’s certainly a little more than finger tight,_ John thinks as he tests the heavy bolts. He slides down the wall and lands with a wet slop. _Why didn’t the bastard chain me up on the high side of this hell hole,_ John thinks as he dangles his fingers in of the tiny streams that trickle around him. He smells his fingers. Oil and asphalt. Run-off from a major road then. _That’s heartening. At least I’m probably close to London proper._

 Suddenly tired, John lays his heavy head back against the cold wall of his unlikely dungeon. He closes his eyes for a moment, hoping to ease the throbbing. He lets himself imagine, just for a moment, that he’s back at Baker Street with Sherlock. He’s dozing in his chair with a hot cuppa by his side and a forgotten book in his lap. And Sherlock….John muses as to what he’d like Sherlock to be doing most—busy with an experiment? No, too dangerous. Working on a case? John surely wouldn’t be dozing then, would he? Ah! Playing his violin. And not plucking it with dis-ease as he often does, but actually standing at the window, his back to John, and drawing his bow against the strings with musicality. Like he used to play, before... A slow, sweet melody that Sherlock often played after John had gone to bed, and so familiar to the both of them that Sherlock’s fingers are near-lazy on the fingerboard as he sways to the tune. In this fantasy, John opens his eyes to watch Sherlock’s beautiful, confident fingers dance on the strings, and Sherlock turns toward him. For a brief moment their eyes meet—Sherlock’s eyes bright, liquid, and mesmerizing—and Sherlock quirks a small smile, before—

 “Wake up.”

 John starts awake and is on his feet in a second, pulled back to his wet, dark dungeon reality.

 “Sorry!” the voice sputters. “I didn’t mean to startle you. But your head. Don’t fall asleep.”

 “I’m sorry, but who’s that?” John says as he walks to the end of his chain again and leans around the pallets. Sure enough, the figure is awake and leaning back against a pillar, seemingly relaxed. John notes that he too has a shackle and chain on his ankle.

 “Another prisoner. Not the news you wanted.” His voice is soft but clear, with hints of a Scottish accent. John guesses the stranger has been in England for quite some time though, as the evidence of accent is faint. “What’s your name, lad?”

 “John,” he answers, clearing his throat. “And yours?”

 “Maleki. Or Mal.”

 John needs information. Needs to know where he is, who put him there, and what sort of risk he is about to face. He sizes up Maleki as best he can between the dark and the distance: he looks to be about John’s age, maybe older, with straight longish black hair that falls chaotically around his face like he hasn’t had a haircut in months. Maybe he hasn’t. He’s stubbly, but not bearded. The way his skin sits on his cheekbones, John guesses he’s been consistently malnourished for quite some time. All his clothes are absurdly too big for his body. His feet are bare and the soles are black.

 “How long have you been here, Mal?” John says quietly.

 Mal looks to the ceiling, his lips moving softly, counting. “Oh. I’d say about 6 weeks.” He pauses while John takes it in. “You’ve been here less than a day, in case you’re wondering. Unconscious.”

  _Good,_ John thinks. _Any evidence is still fresh. Sherlock should be putting it all together shortly._

 “Do you know who’s keeping you here?” John asks.

 “Yes.”

 “Can you say?”

 Mal looks to the ceiling again, his lips moving, and John thinks that this time he is praying. A tingle cascades down his spine as he waits for Mal’s answer. This man doesn’t look afraid. No, he seems quite relaxed actually, leaned up against a pillar with his legs out in front of him and his hands folded in his lap. After a moment, his eyes lower to meet John’s.

 “Everybody’s read about him. The papers call him King Grimm.”

 John is frozen. Dead frozen with fright. King Grimm. A case he and Sherlock were working on—gone cold nearly three weeks ago. A gruesome serial killer with a modus operandi that Sherlock had nearly picked apart, but they’d never gotten a lead on where to find him. His murders were linked but each was different enough that even Sherlock couldn’t figure where he’d strike next.

 King Grimm, the Fairy Tale Serial.

 John slides to the ground and leans against the pallets. Not good, not good. This case had Sherlock frustrated and flummoxed. Just yesterday they’d been arguing about it.

 John had come home from the shops expecting Sherlock to be at least as unbearable as he’d been the last three weeks, since the evidence left from Grimm’s last kill had lead nowhere, again. But true to Sherlock’s ups and downs, things had worsened in the hour he was gone. He pushed through the door to the sitting room just as a large brown book flew past his head.

 “Sherlock! What—”

 “I can’t stand it, John!” Sherlock was standing on the seat of his chair, his fists clenched and his hair an unruly mop of tussled curls.

 “Sherlock, get down from there,” John demanded as he carried the loaded bags into the kitchen and looked for a place on the counter to set them down. “And can you please leave at least a patch clear in here? Lab equipment I understand, but books, Sherlock? There are more books in the kitchen than actual food.” He dropped the bags on the floor and gathered a pile of books. “Books stay in the sitting room,” he said with a pointed glare at Sherlock (who was still standing on the chair) as he passed him. There was nowhere to put the books in the sitting room, so John started a neat pile on the floor by their desk area.

 “I don’t care for your domestic sensibilities, John. Clean if you must, but my mind is wasted on such trivialities. This, however, is much more important. What if he’s following a specific volume? His targets may seem random but perhaps he’s an idiot savant who’s just going chapter-by-chapter. Not chronologically by publication date, nor by the story’s approximate setting in history as I previously speculated, but by a specific volume. All we need to do is isolate the volume to predict his next victim.”

 John stood in front of his mad friend and looked up. “I said get down from there.”

 Sherlock collapsed into a curled heap in the chair, his silk dressing down settling around him rather artfully, and he steepled his fingers. “It’s maddening, John. The Grimm Brothers published their first collection in 1812, and since then I can’t even pinpoint the number of re-printings of their works. This country is obsessed with those wrecked fairy tales, apparently. No wonder some madman is making a killing spree of them. Serves the British public right—”

 “Sherlock!” John gave him a withering look from across the room where he was stacking multiple versions and volumes of Grimms’ Fairy Tales.

 Sherlock sneered at him, but dropped it. “And what if it’s not a specific volume, John? Though it’s nearly worse if it is! Even if we find the volume, how can we possibly track down a person who matches all the characteristics of the heroine or hero before he does? There are 8,308,000 people in this city on the average weekday. It’s infuriating just to consider the odds!”

 Sherlock’s pitch was just so that John knew he was genuinely upset, so he pushed his chair closer to Sherlock’s and sat. With a sigh, he reached out and pulled Sherlock’s hands away from his taut lips, and settled them in his own. Sherlock only slightly resisted. He was throwing a tantrum and he didn’t like to be interrupted during a tantrum, but John also knew that Sherlock enjoyed this new development in their friendship: hands. Ever since Sherlock had returned after six months…well, that is after…after The Fall, John had been administering to his mysterious injuries. The injuries he’d never explained, but had quietly revealed to John over the four months he’d been back as each had become too much to tolerate. As far as John could ascertain without bone scans (to which Sherlock would not consent), Sherlock’s left hand had been nearly crushed during his time away, resulting in possibly dozens of micro-fractures along the thin bones of his hand. While the untreated micro-fractures had long healed, Sherlock’s hand still ached in the cold and cramped after waking from a long sleep. John suspected the hand ached most days, all day, but Sherlock only ever came to him when he truly needed relief.

 John held Sherlock’s hands in his own and began to gently massage his palms. Sherlock immediately stilled. John leaned back to his side table and scooped a bit of Tiger’s Balm from the canister he kept there, and then began to rub it into Sherlock’s hands. As he did, he focused solely on the long, graceful fingers in his—on healing them, making them dance across a violin again. He could feel Sherlock’s eyes staring down at their joined hands as John worked. Silence between them, for a while.

 “Sherlock, I’m worried,” John said lowly. Sherlock didn’t answer, so he continued. “You need to let this case go, if only for a bit.” John wasn’t sure Sherlock was listening, but when he raised his gaze, he found himself startling close to a set of bright, blue eyes. Speculative and defensive. “As your doctor, I require you to eat and sleep—” Sherlock tried to pull away but John clamped down on his hands. Sherlock winced and dropped his eyes. “Sorry, sorry.” He continued massaging a little softer. “It’s okay when you barely eat over a week-long case, but this case has been going on for months. You look terrible. You’re pale, you’re losing weight, and if Mycroft saw you like this he’d be appalled. Your health has almost regressed to when you returned from…” John couldn’t say it, not to him, but Sherlock raised his eyes to meet John’s again. This time the defensiveness was gone, replaced by a sadness that John had only started noticing since Sherlock’s return. “Just….just please put this case away for a while. It’s eating at you. Take a break and come back to it fresh in a few weeks. Yes?”

 Sherlock was silent for some time, and then he whispered, “Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White, Maid Maleen, and then what, John?”

 “Sherlock,” John warned.

 “Don’t patronize me, John,” Sherlock spat as he quickly pulled his hands away. “Is that really what you want? The next victim’s blood on your hands because Sherlock Holmes needed a rest?” Sherlock sprung from his chair and began to pace, his voice getting louder and louder. “The work, John! It matters! It matters more than this trivial vessel and who are _you_ to tell me what I need anyway? I _alone_ have to predict the next fairy tale he chooses, and I _alone_ will decide when I need to stop!”

 John’s chest was suddenly hot with anger. “ _Alone!_ That’s it, isn’t it? Ego too big to consider anybody else’s opinion and a brilliant mind wasted on manic, childish performances like this one.” John stood and faced Sherlock, who was ramping up to reply but not before John got his word in. “I thought you’d changed Sherlock. I thought you’d finally figured out that you need other people in your life. But it’s still all about you and your damned work!”

 Sherlock’s voice was truly cruel when he yelled back, “Yes, it’s always the work! And the work went on just fine before we were flatmates, and all the while I was away!”

 John clenched his fists and stepped toward Sherlock. He had the pleasure of watching Sherlock flinch before he veered around him and down the stairs. He had nothing to say to the wretched, selfish man.

  _Nothing_ , thinks John now as he sits on the cold concrete, _except everything I should have said yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that..._ John remembers how he stormed out of Baker Street and down the sidewalk, aware he’d forgotten his coat and that the air was chilly, but holding too much rage and pride to go back for it. He would hit Sherlock, he was sure, if he’d seen him in that instant.

 John looks down at his own hands and recalls how he was resentful that he could still feel the warm, slow burn of the Tiger Balm on his fingers as he’d walked. Sherlock’s hands and words had stung him like a jellyfish.

 Now, John wishes he’d brought his coat. He wishes more that he’d stayed and finished the fight. _Coward._

 He remembers walking up to Regent’s Park, finding a bench, and sitting there to stew until the sun began to set. He doesn’t remember being hit on the back of the head, but assumes this is where he was abducted from. And then he was here.

 “John?”

 “Right,” John breathes as he settles back into the present. “Sorry, just taking in the situation.”

 “You read the papers then. Is it much worse? Before I got here, he’d killed two women and his nickname had just been coined by some private detective.”

  _Consulting,_ John thinks. “Yes, Sleeping Beauty, then Cinderella, and two more since you’ve been here.”

 “Didn’t pay it much attention, truthfully. Another psycho in the papers. Wish I’d known every detail now.”

 John looks over at his cell-mate. Maybe he doesn’t look so much relaxed as he does resigned. He’s been here six weeks, after all. John’s instincts tell him to be careful what he tells this man, but the healer in him wants to help, to offer clarity and information, to maybe sooth what must be a frightening ordeal for this stranger.

 “Tell me what you know,” John says. “I can tell you what the papers have said since.”

 Mal made a low humming sound before clearing his throat. “He’s crazy. That I know personally. And he’s convinced he’s the king of some fairy world, but everything is backwards there. He kidnaps people and plays out old-fashioned fairy tales. The old Grimms’ tales that end so bloody. He makes them end bloody, even when they aren’t supposed to.” Mal pauses and hums again, like he’s gathering steam for another long speech. “The first girl, that was Sleeping Beauty, the papers said. But it didn’t sound like the story I know.”

 John snorts. No it did not. “In the old Grimms’ story,” John shares, “a princess gets a sliver of flax buried under her fingernail, and she falls unconscious. Her father lays her body down on his estate. A king comes upon her, rapes her, and goes home. In the story, the princess gives birth to twins and eventually marries the king, but the killer never got to that part. Eight weeks ago, the police found the body of a woman in Hyde Park, dressed in a silk blue gown and laid on a bed a flowers. The cause of death was an overdose of zolpidem combined with opiates--sleeping pills and pain killers—but it obviously wasn’t a suicide. Rape kit tested positive. And while it didn’t seem important at first, a sliver of flax was shoved under one of her fingernails.”

 “Seems tame now, compared to the second murder.”

 “Wait till I tell you about the last two,” John replies ruefully. “What did you read about the second?”

 Hum. “The papers said it was Cinderella. They found her outside the Intercontinental Hotel, the morning after the opening ceremony of The London Ball. She _was_ a dancer in the competition, I believe. She was dressed in a gown that was later proved to be stolen from the St. James Theatre, who put up _Cinderella_ last year. Her toes and heels sliced clean off. Her eyes scooped out…”

 There’s a long pause between them, and then John picks up the thread. “Cause of death was loss of blood. You don’t need to know the implements he used. It’s gruesome. He got the story wrong, though.” _It drove Sherlock crazy._ “In Grimms’ version, it’s the evil step sisters that slice off their own toes and heels to fit into the glass slipper. And later, after Cinderella marries the prince, the stepsisters have their eyes pecked out by doves. Sherlo—I mean, the police couldn’t figure out why the victim was Cinderella, not one of the sisters.”

 “How could they be sure she was Cinderella?”

 “The shoes fit. They were her size, and based on rough impressions, her shoes. Both were on her feet when she was found.”

 For awhile, they sit in silence. John thinks about working the case with Sherlock, and how miffed he’d been that it was actually John who’d made the connection between the first two murders—that each was a twisted version of a Grimms’ tale. If Sherlock had ever bothered to read a fairy tale as a child, he’d deleted it. In fact, the oddities of each murder had Sherlock in head spin (he’d spent a whole evening in his Mind Palace but none of the details matched what he’d had stored there). John told Sherlock to consider them lucky that as a young boy, John had once found a copy of the Grimm Brother’s _Children’s and Household Tales_ (the original title of the collection) in the library, and that the details of _Cinderella_ in particular had been so grisly that John had retained those images into his adult life. Sherlock told John that luck was for the weak-minded and disorganized. John wonders if this was a compliment…

  “And the last two?” Mal finally asks into the dim.

 “The third woman was found with her lungs and liver cut out. And a chunk of apple lodged in her throat. You wouldn’t believe it, but the story was Grimms’ _Snow White._ In the original tale, the Queen sends a huntsman to bring back Snow White’s liver and lungs, which she plans to eat. The huntsman fails but later the Queen gets her with the poison apple, until the Prince comes to save her. This one was pretty graphic.” John shivers as he remembers the smell of iron in the air—so much blood.

 “Was she dressed? Like Snow White?”

 “No. Maybe he couldn’t find a suitable costume, but he’d applied bright red lipstick to her lips. Real sick. This guy is screwed in the head.” John takes a steadying breath. “The last murder was just three weeks ago. Do you know the story of Maid Maleen?”

 “No.”

 “It’s a real obscure one. Princess Maleen wants to marry a prince but the king says no and locks her in a tower for seven years with all her servants. After seven years, they break free only to find the kingdom has fallen and the king is dead. They flee to the Prince’s kingdom and take jobs in the royal kitchen because the Prince is betrothed to another princess, though he’s never met her. However, his betrothed is ugly, and on the day of their wedding, she asks Maid Maleen to take her place as bride so the Prince won’t refuse to marry her. Maid Maleen marries the prince and at the ceremony he places a gold necklace around her neck. That night he goes to the wedding chamber to find there is no gold necklace around his bride’s neck, and an assassin has been sent to kill Maleen. He rescues her just in time and they live happily ever after.” John takes a deep breath and continues. “The last victim was found in the penthouse of an unfinished condo project that’s been on-hold for the last few months, so quite isolated. She’d been starved to death. We—I mean, the police might have thought it was unrelated, except she was dressed in a wedding dress, and the important detail, was wearing a gold necklace around her neck.” Sherlock had put the details of this one together, having read all of Grimms’ tales multiple times by this point. He knew the tale in an instant.

 Mal makes a sort of grunt of acknowledgement, and John figures there’s really nothing more to say about the previous murders. The serial killer is one of the worst he and Sherlock have tracked, and brilliant to boot. No one detail had led Sherlock to identify the killer yet, and there was zero connection between the victims. Sherlock figured the killer had resources, imagination, and possibly help. John replayed his conversation with Sherlock in his head, and found he still believed that this case was eating away at Sherlock. When it was Moriarty, it’d been a game and he’d wanted Sherlock to advance to the end, but this killer was completely unpredictable.

 “You know the Grimms’ tales really well,” Mal near whispers. “Maybe you can tell me how I’ll die? So far I’ve just been shackled here, waiting.”

 “I...I don’t know,” John stutters. He didn’t re-read most the tales. Sherlock read multiple copies cover-to-cover. Sherlock would know. He’d glance at dark-haired Mal in the too-big clothes, sitting in a dungeon, and he’d name the story instantly.

 “No worries. Guess you’ve got your own story to figure out.”

 And that was the rub, wasn’t it? If John was indeed being held captive by King Grimm, then his next big concern was surely what fairy tale character is he meant to be, and how might that character meet his end?

  _Sherlock, where are you?_


	2. Chapter Two

"Daddy says you can spin straw into gold, child.”

John’s chest constricts in panic. That voice: deep and rough like gravel—a life-long smoker—but as icy and dangerous as a London street in January. John know this is King Grimm. He wants to roll over and look into the bastard’s face, but he can’t move. His body is paralyzed in a fetal position on the cold concrete. _A drug then,_ John thinks, regretting that he didn’t arrange to sleep in shifts with Mal. John gathers all his will and forces his eyes to open. He can breathe. He can blink. He tries to flex his fingers but he’s not even sure where either of his arms are lying.

John feels a presence close by his ear. There’s a black shadow on the floor before him.

“Daddy says that ‘Mr. Holmes can solve any mystery.’” The voice exhales sharply and John feels spittle on his cheek. “High praise from Daddy, pretty child,” the voice wheezes.

John’s mind is reeling: he’s trying to put the pieces together but it’s hard to focus when really he just wants to lash out and punch his guy in the face—to wrap his hands around his neck and squeeze. _Daddy. Straw. Gold. Sherlock. Why didn’t I re-read those stupid stories?_

“Let’s see if Daddy’s right,” the voice continues. A black leather glove descends into his field of vision and deposits a small envelope just inches from John’s face. “Pretty Mr. Holmes, make Daddy proud. Solve this mystery before the sun rises or else the King will have you beheaded.” The black leather glove gently caresses John’s hair, and John is disgusted. Inside he screams, _Stop you bastard! Take your disgusting hands off of me._ He feels dirty where the hand touches him. The voice whispers, close to his ear, “Beautiful maiden with the flaxen hair, don’t disappoint.”

John listens as King Grimm rises and his footsteps fall softer and softer. There’s a bang of a metal door closing, and then nothing but the drip and trickle of rainwater cutting creeks in the concrete.

_You have got to be kidding me. Mistaken for Sherlock—again. At this rate, I’ll have to start wearing a name-tag._

“John!” Mal’s quiet but urgent voice calls to him from across the basement. “He gave you a needle, but don’t worry, it wears off. I couldn’t do anything, John.” There’s the rattle of chains and John thinks Mal is dragging himself closer. “It’s started, John. Your story has started.”

 

John has plenty of time to think on King Grimm’s words while he waits for his body to process the drug. He knew he’d heard the words “Mr. Holmes can solve any mystery” and it wasn’t from Sherlock that he’d heard it (surprisingly). It was from Lestrade.

Two weeks ago, just before it started to become clear that the new set of evidence would give them nothing, Mrs. Hudson had hustled up the stairs around six on a Tuesday evening.

“Oh boys, boys! Turn on the telly quick! You’re on the news!” She dashed over to the tube and switched it on before an annoyed looking Sherlock could intercept her.

“Mrs. Hudson, really,” he called from the kitchen-lab. “I’m working here, can’t you see? I don’t have time for your insignificant drabble.”

But she’d already found the channel. “Oh Dears, they’re doing a spot on that nasty murderer, and you wouldn’t believe that Mr. Lestrade is being so nice about the work you’ve been doing.”

John leaned forward in his chair as Mrs. Hudson perched on Sherlock’s, and sure enough, Lestrade was being interviewed about Sherlock’s involvement on the case.

“… _it’s necessary on a case like this to bring in consultants and Mr. Holmes has been helpful to the Yard in the past. He is truly a gifted detective, and despite the events of last year, we’re lucky to have him on this case. He’s brilliant, and I do believe that Mr. Holmes can solve any mystery.”_

The screen flashed away from Lestrade’s interview to shots of Sherlock and John talking behind the yellow ribbon at the latest crime scene. The reporter continued with a voiceover: “ _Mr. Holmes made national news late last year when his name as a detective was discredited by now-deceased criminal James Moriarty. Many citizens were disturbed to hear of Mr. Holmes’ involvement in multiple murder investigations across London. His reputation as an investigator was effectively defunct when he allegedly faked his death by throwing himself from a rooftop. While Scotland Yard has evidently elected to continue consulting with the now resurrected Mr. Holmes, some Londoners believe that Mr. Holmes is an extremely unstable character and—_ ” John flipped the telly off.

“Bollocks,” he said. “None of them know a damn about what they’re talking about. Just ignore it, Sherlock.”

“Dull.” He hadn’t even looked up from his microscope.

“I think that fellow Lestrade is very kind to the both of you,” Mrs. Hudson piped up.

“Please get out, Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock said.

John and Mrs. Hudson shared a wry moment of eye contact, before Mrs. Hudson patted John on the hand and slipped out of the flat with a small smile on her face. How she tolerated him, John still hadn’t figured out, but she seemed to have a store of endless patience for Sherlock alone.

Sherlock had been…prickly since his return. His patience was short in supply, and that was a worrisome thing considering how little he’d had to start. He’d been isolating himself even more than John remembered. He’d ordered in a generous amount of expensive equipment so he wouldn’t have to visit Bart’s, and the few times Lestrade had dropped by socially, he’d turned him away (which John found heartbreaking as poor Lestrade was desperately trying to atone for his role in Sherlock’s “death”). He was only interested in eating-in, refusing even light lunches at Angelo’s, and while it had been commonplace before that Mrs. Hudson would wander in and out of their flat, Sherlock now directed her to leave at his earliest opportunity. John was willing to concede that whatever Sherlock had experienced while he was away had been traumatizing, but the day that Mycroft visited, was the day John had begun to fret. Sherlock had been completely unresponsive to his brother’s presence. They’d sat in the living room and Mycroft had tried to draw Sherlock into any conversation he could (and he’d pulled out every trick he knew to get a rise out of his brother), but Sherlock had simply sat there, still, silent, and placid, until Mycroft had given up and left.

John watched from the sitting room as Sherlock drew back from his microscope and brought his hands to his forehead. He scrunched up his eyes and let out a long breath.

“Headache again?” John asked.

“I can’t focus when it throbs like this,” he answered quietly.

John went to him, sliding his hands across Sherlock’s shoulders before stopping directly behind him. “Off with the shirt,” he said. “You’ll have to take breaks from the microscope now. The position aggravates the whole musculature of your neck and upper back.”

Sherlock undid his buttons and shrugged off his dress shirt, dropping it to the floor. John dragged his fingertips over Sherlock’s smooth skin, letting his own cool hands warm up. With calculated pressure, John slowly pressed his thumbs into the tight knots in Sherlock’s shoulders, running down the trapezium muscles on either side of his spine. He felt Sherlock’s body relax under his hands. He heard his breathing become steady. John knew he shouldn’t revel in this like he did; he’s a doctor, and the human body is a machine that can be tuned and oiled and repaired, but it’s still a machine. John had always been careful to keep his professional work as a healer separate from any pleasure gleaned from the bodies he worked on. It was difficult with Sherlock, though. His frame was fine but not delicate, and his musculature was lean and long like an athlete. The first time John had offered to work out Sherlock’s sore muscles, he’d been shocked into silence by how defined his upper body was. _But he doesn’t even work-out…how does he look so perfect?_ John had stopped denying it: he thought Sherlock’s body was beautiful.

John could feel the knots breaking under his thumbs, and when he felt Sherlock tense in discomfort, he moved his hand up to massage his neck. Sherlock made a sultry hum of pleasure and John smiled wide. Sherlock was enjoying this; it was beyond a medical treatment now, and John didn’t care that he’d crossed the line from a doctor working on damaged muscle to…to what? A man massaging his best mate? John felt like he should have been disturbed by this, but it was Sherlock, after all. Sherlock: who nobody ever touched and was probably starved for human contact. Sherlock: whose body was a rush to feel it was so damned perfect. Sherlock: who had suddenly rolled his head back until it rested on John’s stomach and was now looking up at him with wide, blue eyes.

John paused, but when Sherlock didn’t say anything, he continued to work his hands up the sides of Sherlock’s neck and into his thick curls. Sherlock’s eyes drifted closed, and John couldn’t stop his fingers drifting to his jaw line; this was what John wanted: Sherlock in a moment of quiet peace.

A short lived moment.

“It doesn’t bother me,” Sherlock said lowly. He didn’t open his eyes and John didn’t stop touching his neck and face.

“Your shoulders?”

“No, the media.”

John smiled. His brain never stopped processing, even when John thought it had.

“It would be good, just the same, if you did a come-back interview with one of the papers. You could get the public back on your side, start having regular cases again instead of just consulting for the Met. It would take the pressure off Lestrade, too. He’s constantly being questioned about it.”

“I don’t care what side the public is on.” Sherlock sighed and turned one cheek slightly upwards. John stroked Sherlock’s cheekbone, frankly loving the smooth skin below his eyes and the light stubble closer to his jaw. Suddenly, Sherlock’s eyes snapped open and he looked intensely up at John. “But _you_ do.”

John nodded, and sensing the moment was over, slowly withdrew his hands and put them both in his pockets. In slow motion, Sherlock rose from the chair and turned to face John. He was suddenly focused, towering over John with just a bit of menace. He spoke softly.

“Why is it? I’ve asked you this before: why do _you_ care about what other people think of _me_?”

“It’s really still a mystery to you?”

“Would I ask otherwise?”

“It’s because I care for you, Sherlock,” John whispered. “You’re my best mate, and…and I wish everyone could see you how I see you.”

Sherlock stared at him for a moment, and John wondered if he’d said the wrong thing—if he’d pushed Sherlock away when he was trying so hard to heal Sherlock and get back what they’d had before. Sherlock pursed his lips in thought, and then slowly turned and strode toward his bedroom. John took his hands from his pockets and stared down at them. _Healing hands, yeah right._ But before the click of Sherlock’s bedroom door, John was fairly certain he heard the low reply: “Thank you, John.”

The concrete is cold, but the recollection warms him. Maybe he had gotten through to Sherlock?

_The great Sherlock Holmes, who (as Lestrade so conveniently stated publicly) can solve ANY mystery, except that of the human heart. I wonder if Sherlock deleted his entry on poetic irony? I’ll have to ask._

That was it: Lestrade’s well-intentioned interview had landed John mistakenly kidnapped (again).

John flexes his hands and finds he can wiggle his fingers. Not long now.

A half hour later, John reaches out and draws the envelope toward him. He fingers are stiff and tender as he tears open the thick paper, taking steadying breathes and hoping to hell he’s not about to set off a bomb or release poison dust or start a count-down to something equally as unpleasant.

He finally opens the envelope and finds a photograph. It’s very old, worn thin at the edges, and discoloured with moisture damage. A black and white.

“What is it?” Mal whispers from across the room. There’s no point in John holding the photo up; Mal is too far away.

“It’s a man. He’s been hung. The rope is wound around one of the exposed beams in the room. He’s just hanging in the middle. There are no windows in the room.” John turns the photo over to find a note scrawled in red sharpie. “It says, ‘How did he die?’”

“You said he’s been hung.”

“Right. That would be too obvious.”

John can feel his arms and shoulders now, so he reaches behind him and pulls himself up to lean again the wall. From this angle he can see Mal sitting cross-legged beside the forklift in his too-big clothes.

John squints at the photo, holding it close to his face. He looks for abrasions or bruising on the little exposed skin of the man. He scrutinizes every shadow (of which there are plenty) and picks apart the man’s clothing, looking for stains or tears. He considers poison, but there’s no evidence of foam or puke at the man’s mouth. The photo quality is terrible, but John figures that there must be some evidence in the photo that will give him the answer.

After half an hour, Mal clears his throat. “Anything?”

“I have good news and bad news. The good is that I can feel my legs. The bad is that I’ve got nothing. He was hung. That’s all I can conclude without actually seeing the body. This is ridiculous really—naming C.O.D. from a photograph!”

“C.O.D.?”

“Sorry, Doctor-speak. Cause of death.”

“You’re a doctor?”

“Right now I’m a man shackled in a dark basement, but on occasion yes, I’m a doctor.”

“Well, Dr. Holmes, I could use your opinion.”

John cringes. “Not Holmes. That mad-man has me confused with somebody else. Just John.”

“Then, who’s Mr. Hol—”

“It doesn’t matter,” John yells, his anger suddenly rising. He doesn’t want Sherlock a part of this in any way. Well, a rescue might be nice, but only a proper successful rescue with no guns or danger and an arrest of King Grimm. “Just please be quiet while I think on this.”

John thinks most of the night. He knows the answer won’t be the cause of death—that was plain—so it must be _how_ he was hung. Murder or suicide? If murdered, then what photographic evidence suggested it? None. There was no furniture in the room. No scuffs or dents on the walls to suggest a struggle. The floorboards appeared to be oddly warped, and there was water-damage on the drywall, but other than that it was an empty, plain room.

John began to think about the body: no marks. Even around his neck there was very little discolouration. John thinks this must mean there was very little struggle. So perhaps it was a suicide? But there’s no table or chair. How did the man physically hang himself without something to jump off? John shudders when he thinks of jumping; Sherlock’s falling silhouette flashes through his mind and he breathes deep to clear the tightness in his chest. His worst day. His worst moment. He tries never to think of it. _Sherlock is back now. Safe. At Baker Street. Damn, I hope he’s at Baker Street and now throwing himself into this mess._

He’s back to the photo, but he still can’t come up with an answer.

“I’m convinced this is a suicide,” he says aloud. Mal’s body jerks awake across the room, and he groans. “There’s no evidence of struggle. But how did he actually get himself up there?”

“I could help you. Pass me the photo.”

John looks over at his odd cell-mate. Is there any harm in passing over the photo? At this point, the photo is burned into John’s mind, and a second pair of eyes can’t hurt. He crawls forward until he can’t go any further, and so does Mal, but there’s still several metres between them. John doesn’t want to toss the photo and have it get stuck between them, so he reaches back, slides off his shoe, puts the photo inside, and skates it across the concrete to Mal.

“Cheers,” says Mal.

John rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling. He wishes he could melt into the floor and sleep forever. His head is throbbing from the blow and hazy from the drug. He’s cold and wet and hungry. And he approximates he’s got about two hours of darkness left before King Grimm expects an answer.

_Sherlock would have solved this hours ago,_ John thinks. He finds he’s angry at Sherlock. For dragging him into this case and not letting it go—for being the reason John is always in danger. For being insistent and enticing about damn-near everything, so that John has nearly given up ever saying no. For his selfish, abrasive behaviour. For never acknowledging anything John does for him—the cooking, cleaning, wound-patching, social-guiding, and occasionally bad-guy shooting—and for taking John for granted. _Fuck Sherlock Holmes._

_Fuck Sherlock Holmes for not finding me yet._

John is so wrapped up in his anger that he doesn’t notice time passing, and he drifts, and wakes later to find the basement a little less dark than before.

“No!” he yells, jumping up and spinning about. “Mal! Have you figured it out?”

“I have,” Mal says calmly and quietly, still sitting cross-legged in the same spot.

“It’s almost daylight! If you’ve figured it, you’ve got to tell me!”

“I’ll tell you, but you have to do something for me.”

“You can’t be serious?” John drops his weary body to his knees. “He’ll kill me.”

“I said I’d tell you.” Mal’s voice is cool. John wants to throttle him.

“In exchange for what?” John needs this to move faster. The sun is rising.

“Your other shoe.” Mal slowly uncurls his legs and stretches them out. He’s wearing John’s shoe on one foot. The other foot is black and swollen, and John hates himself because he should have noticed sooner: Mal’s suffering from frostbite and possibly mild trench foot. That’s why he’d wanted a doctor’s opinion…

John doesn’t hesitate. He tears off his other shoe and tosses it to Mal, who happily slips it on.

“Good trade. Here’s the answer: ice. You’re right, it’s a suicide. He stood on a block of ice and it melted.”

“Of course,” John exclaims. “That’s why the floorboards are warped. Wait, but where did he get an ice block from? And how did he get it into the room? And—”

“It’s a riddle, John, and a famous one. This photo probably isn’t even real. It’s just staged to be a visual version of an old riddle.”

“A riddle is different than a mystery. He said it was a mystery.”

“It’s his game. He makes the rul—”

The loud bang of a metal door swinging open halts them both. From the corner, a tall figure appears. He’s dressed in a long, black hooded robe with a single rope tied around his waist. _Like an evil friar,_ John thinks. The man stands there silently, and John’s still not sure what’s supposed to happen next or if Mal’s solution makes any sense, but when the figure slowly draws a long fillet knife from behind his back, John blurts:

“Ice. He was standing on a block of ice.”

The figure pauses and remains still for several long seconds. Then: the voice.

“Very good, pretty maiden. Daddy will be proud. But tomorrow night, a little pile of straw becomes a bale.”

The figure turns and leaves. The door slamming echoes through the large space. John slowly lowers himself on the spot. He can already feel the nip of cold air on his socked toes, but he’s alive. He’s buying Sherlock time to find him, and after he’ll have a nice cup of tea and demand that Sherlock rub _his_ shoulders.

And he’s figured something out.

“Mal. I know what my story is. And I don’t much like your part in it.”


	3. Chapter Three

John claws at the wooden pallet with raw hands. He pins it to the floor with a socked foot and pries up at the stringer. If only he had something to create leverage. His shoulders burn and his palms sting as they grate against the unfinished wood.

“Break, damn you!” he cries.

He lifts the pallet and pounds it into the concrete but it doesn’t break. He screams in frustration and kicks the stupid thing.

“You need to work on your riddle,” Mal calls from his corner of their dungeon.

“Shut up,” John says, as he picks up the pallet again and props it against a pillar. He braces his foot against it, latches his fingers around the stringer, and leans back with all his weight.

“I’m trying to help you, John. You only have eight, maybe ten hours, before he’s back. Just open the envelope!”

“No!” John screams, letting the pallet fall and turning to Mal. “I won’t play your mad games. So sod off!”

“It’s not my game!” Mal is on his feet and yelling back. “I told you, I’m not part of this. I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t—”

“I said sod off! I’ve heard it all. I heard it all day and I’m getting tired of still hearing it. I’m not Sherlock Holmes but I’m not stupid. You’re playing a part for him. You are Rumpelstiltskin. I traded shoes for the answer, and there’s nothing you can say that will convince me that was a coincidence.”

“Then he’s manipulating us both!”

“Then I will be manipulated no longer!” John roars, and his fury stops Mal mid-breath. They stand facing one another for a long moment, both panting. John’s fists are curled tight, and if his chain would reach far enough, he’d break Mal’s nose.

Mal turns away with a shrug. John picks up the pallet again and braces it against the pillar. He shakes out his shoulders, takes a breath, and lunges forward to grab the stringer. He groans as he pulls backwards, jerking his arms until he hears a crack, then a bigger crack, and finally the stringer pulls free of the deck-board.

“Yes!” John’s shoulders are burning, but this is a win. _I’m getting out of this place._ He wiggles the stringer back and forth to loosen the other side; it’s surprisingly easy to pry the other side free. The two-by-one board is rough and splintered, but it has what John needs: a nail. John doesn’t waste any time. He pads over to the wall where his chain is attached to a metal ring-bolt that is set deep into the wall. He places his hands on the stringer strategically, plants his feet, and takes an experimental strike at the wall—just above the ring. The nail hits the concrete, the impact reverberating up his arms, but it leaves a shallow scratch. _Perfect._ He strikes again, and again. He can feel the impact in his elbows and shoulders, but this is his way out. His way back to Baker Street. Back to Sherlock.

“That’s your plan? It’s concrete, John! You can’t dig your way out.”

“The walls are made of breeze block, not poured concrete. It’s old breeze block, too.” John keeps picking the nail at the wall as he calls over his shoulder. “That means it’s soft and hollow-cored. How much you want to bet that this bolt is less than four inches long?”

“Thought you were done making deals with me?”

“I am.”

John strikes again and a small chunk of aggregate tumbles to the ground. _Success!_ John lets the small victory drive him forward, strike by strike.

It becomes cold in the basement, and John’s feet chill in his thin socks. He wants to demand his shoes back, but the doctor in him knows that Mal’s feet are actually quite bad and need exposure protection, and the paranoid-Sherlock-voice that sometimes sounds through his brain tells him that everything in this basement is a game between him, Mal, and King Grimm, and that demanding his shoes back is a move that will compromise his position on the board. So John ignores the cold and takes solace in the fact that the breeze block is chipping away morsel by morsel and soon he’ll be free.

The hours tick by. The nail breaks, and John replaces his tool several times, but it’s easier to pry the stringers off the pallet now that he has the first one for leverage. He adjusts his hands up and down the wood constantly. It starts with blisters, and then the blisters bleed, and then he’s sure his blisters have blisters but he’s a doctor and knows that’s not possible, but still, could this get any worse?

“John, open the new envelope. You best chance is to solve the new mystery.”

John doesn’t answer. He keeps focused on his task. Bit by bit, the breeze block chips away. When he finally breaches the hollow space, his progress improves. He puts the nail in the hole and pulls toward himself, making a bigger and bigger hole. The hours pass.

John falls into a trance. All he can hear is the chip of metal on concrete and his own breathing. He stops feeling the fire burning in his shoulders, the grinding of his joints, and the splitting wounds on his hands. Doctor John H. Watson is a tank with a clear mission, and his focus is unparalleled. Like his days spent in Afghanistan, he blocks out the bigger picture—the mad serial killer, the cold basement, the friend-foe in the corner, the fact that he’s been there nearly 72 hours and Sherlock still hasn’t shown up—and he focuses on something he can handle: chipping away the breeze block and unbolting his chain.

His mind wanders to block out the anxiety and physical pain. He thinks about the case; he thinks about the crime scene of the last victim. Maid Maleen. He remembers Sherlock crouched over the body of the pale, skeletal woman that had been left to starve in the unfinished penthouse. The space was just concrete slab and steel stud, the windows hadn’t even been installed, and the wind cut across the crime scene icy, sharp and howling.

John was freezing, but Sherlock had already shared his deductions on the Maid Maleen story with Lestrade, and John hoped they were done soon. Except that some minutes before Sherlock had crouched before the body and stayed there. John stood back from the body and appreciated the scene. This was how he knew he’d been spending too much time with Sherlock: he was appreciating the beauty of a crime scene. But there was something unearthly here, and Sherlock was the centre of it. His graceful frame—black suit and long black coat—bent carefully over the woman in white—a beaded wedding dress with a full skirt spread across the concrete like a layer of snow; her face veiled; the only colour on her a delicate gold necklace. London was spread out behind the two, still and misty in the early morning, and the only movement was Sherlock’s dark curls and the dresses’ lace fringes, tussled by the wicked wind. _They’re both angels,_ John thought. _Though Sherlock is his own breed of angel, beautiful but dangerous._ John grins, because Sherlock would scoff if he’d known John was comparing him to an angel. Never the hero, never an angel, but to John….

John watched Sherlock’s body language: shoulders forward and tense, hands clenched, eyes narrow. John had become painfully aware of his body language since his return. He could tell now that Sherlock was upset about something, and it wasn’t the body at his feet.

The lift doors behind them slid open, and Sally Donovan stepped out.

“Any luck on an ID?” Lestrade called as he appeared from around the corner where he’d been inspecting the rest of the flat.

“None. Nothing in Missing Persons, anyway,” Donovan called back. The two stopped on either side of John, and for a brief moment he wondered if they saw what he saw. Donovan turned to John. “What are you grinning about?” John blanked his face. He liked Sally, mostly, but she could be harsh. And John grimaced as he watched her approach Sherlock. “Quite staring, Freak,” she spat. “I know the only time you’re close to a woman is at a crime scene, but have some respect.”

Sherlock didn’t move, nor did he stop staring at the victim. Before, John would have expected an equally tart retort, but this was the new Sherlock, stoic and silent.

Lestrade stepped between them. “Sally, let’s get this body out of here. We’ll need the coroner to do her up and then get her photo out. Sherlock, you about done here?”

Sherlock ignored him. “John,” he said, and John joined him crouched beside the body. “Get online and start skimming the social media sites and forums for this missing woman. Be thorough.” He paused, and his voice turned low and impassioned: “ _Somebody_ must have been looking for her.”

That was worrisome. Sherlock seemed almost emotional about the victim.

“Right. And what are you doing?”

“I’m going to observe the autopsy. See what I can learn.”

“Get a looky-loo, is what he means,” Donovan taunted.

“Donovan, that’s enough,” Lestrade said. He gave a firm tilt of the head and Donovan followed him back to the lift. Once he’d heard the doors close, John scooted closer to Sherlock and carefully laid his hand on an arm.

"What is it?”

Sherlock’s quick eyes surveyed the body once more before meeting John’s. A wry little smile crossed his lips, before he leaned into John and slid his arm over John’s shoulder. “John, help me stand please. My knee has seized in this cold.”

John laughed as he wrapped his arm around Sherlock’s waist and slowly lifted his friend. Sherlock gave him quite a bit more weight than he was expecting, but John was a stocky man and figured that if the need required, he could probably carry Sherlock. Sherlock trembled slightly as he straightened his knee (another post-Fall injury he wouldn’t speak of), and then he sighed with relief. He didn’t pull away, and John stayed firmly where he was, waiting for Sherlock to signal he was ready. Sherlock looked down at him and was met with a raised eyebrow, but before John could say it, Sherlock beseeched: “If the word _physiotherapy_ comes out of your mouth one more time, I promise that I will break your knee and then you can go.”

John smirked. “I told you Sherlock, your knee injury is psychosomatic.”

Sherlock chortled, and John felt the arm around his shoulders begin to squeeze tighter and tighter. “I would look fetching with a cane. You still have yours?” And tighter.

“Ow! Ow! Okay, I get it!” John was laughing as Sherlock released him and gave him a playful shove toward the elevator. There was the smile John so-loved spread across Sherlock’s lips for the first time in weeks. “No way I’m lending you my cane. Not when you just threatened to break my knee.”

“Pity, I do so fancy how Mycroft looks when he leans on his brolly. I might take up leaning myself. Your cane would do nicely.”

John laughed loudly as Sherlock paused with one foot crossed over the other, hand in his pocket, leaning on an invisible cane and playing Mycroft perfectly. _Laughing at a crime scene again, John. Bit not good._ But he didn’t care. He turned and backed into the lift as he continued to tease Sherlock: “Next time, I’m leaving you down there, you loon.”

But it was the wrong thing to say. Sherlock’s smile faltered and he tried to hide it but they both knew John had seen the break. Sherlock stepped into the lift beside him, and John moved close.

“Sherlock, I would never leave you anywhere. You do know that?”

He barely nodded. “Someone left her,” he muttered, as the doors closed and the body slid out of view.

John hit the “stop” button and the lift jolted to a halt. The two men faced the doors.

“Sherlock, you never care about the victim. You say that sentiment is a disadvantage. It clouds your mind. So why does it upset you that nobody reported this woman missing?”

“That’s the story here, isn’t it? It’s important to this case. Maid Maleen and her ladies are locked in a tower and forgotten about. The King dies and nobody comes to free Maleen. There’s no rescuer in this story, she has to escape the tower on her own—only to face death again, mind you—but the point is that nobody was coming to get her. Perhaps this victim was supposed to have escaped? You’re sure she died of dehydration and starvation?” John nodded. “Then she would have had plenty of time to escape, to call for help, to fashion a signal….”

“Sherlock,” John whispered, “You said just a half hour ago that you don’t believe she was held here for very long. You said she was moved here quite close to death…” John waited with a lump in his throat, because Sherlock never forgot anything he didn’t want to. His friend stared at the doors, his mouth slightly open and an unreadable expression on his face. John found that he wasn’t ready to address this one yet, so he backtracked. “And you haven’t answered my question. Why do you care?”

Sherlock’s voice was low. “What did that woman do, or not do, so that not one person looked for her. She’s not an ugly woman, so it can’t be that. Was she unusually cruel, or selfish, or stupid? Wasn’t there one person who cared when she disappeared?”

“Are you worried for yourself?” John felt his friend’s gaze shift to look at him, and he met it. “I would look for you if you disappeared.”

“As it stands, you are tied to this friendship, but what if I change, John? Will you still look for me if I’m ugly, or cruel, or selfish, or stupid?”

_You will never be anything but beautiful._ “You are cruel. And selfish. And I’m still here. As for stupid, we both know that even a stupid-Sherlock would still be twice as brilliant as most anybody.” Sherlock grimaced at this and John knew there more on his mind but he could also see the set in his jaw that signalled he was shifting gears. Sherlock reached forward, hit the “resume” button, and the lift began to descend. John added: “Sherlock, you have changed, since your return. And I’m still here.”

In a swift movement, Sherlock swung around and slipped his hand under John’s open jacket to rest over his heart. John’s body reacted with a shiver that traveled from his toes up to where Sherlock’s warm hand pressed into his chest. Sherlock stood over John and looked straight into his eyes. John wasn’t sure where to look—his eyes or lips—as Sherlock said: “If you disappear, I will never stop looking.”

Then the lift doors slid open and Sherlock glided out with a swoop of his coat. John stayed in the lift and marvelled at how the warm spot on his chest tingled and glowed like a sparkler. He was beaming.

It’s those words— _I will never stop looking_ —that keep John working the breeze block away bit by bit. Sherlock _is_ searching London for him even as he attempts this ludicrous escape, and John believes that no matter how sparse the evidence, Sherlock will find him.

John jerks out of his trance when a large piece of the block breaks free and crumbles onto the floor. He can see the shaft of the bolt set into the concrete block—nearly half of it is exposed now and he confirms that the short bolt ends in the hollow space of the block. With renewed energy, he turns and slams the wood into the ring, and with a crack the heavy ring-bolt flips down and out of the block.

“YES!” John whoops, inadvertently waking Mal. From the corner of his eye, he can see him stir and stand slowly.

John uses his finger tips—his palms blistered and bloody—to wrap the chain diagonal around his body over and over until the whole length sits heavy on his good shoulder. He tucks the ring-bolt through the chain to secure it. He’s going to make a lot of noise as he walks, and the shackle is still quite heavy on his one ankle, but this is the best he can do. Keeping his body loose, he creeps across the basement toward the door he knows is there.

“John,” comes a frantic whisper. “John, you can’t leave me!”

_We should have had this conversation before I was free._ John creeps closer to Mal, but not within reaching range. “Mal, I’m sorry, but it took me all night to chip this bolt out. If you want to escape, I suggest you grab a pallet and start working.”

“You still think I’m working for him.”

John doesn’t answer. He can’t help Mal, at least not when his own chance of escape is still so tenuous. He turns and starts his slow slink towards the door, his chain rattling gently.

“John, if you leave, you’re leaving an innocent man behind! I’m as much a part of this game as you, and what do you think he’ll do if you end the game? He’ll kill me, and you know it!” Mal is getting louder, and John sees that the sky is starting to lighten. He has a half-hour at most to find his way out of here and to safety before King Grimm shows up.

“Quiet!” John continues to walk as he speaks. “I will look for a tool that I can free you with, otherwise, you’ll have to trust that I’ll return with the police. Just be quiet. My escape is the best chance you’ve got right now.” John means it—he will come back for Mal, even though he still thinks he is playing the other side—and he tries to convey as much on his face. Mal’s own face is screwed up tight, sweating, and pained, but he nods and he stays quiet. John turns and faces the door.

Quiet as he can be, John pushes the heavy door open. He sneaks up a set of dark stairs and finds another door. This will lead to the main floor of the warehouse. He has no idea what lies behind. His body shakes as he gently shoulders the door open, staying low, and slips sideways through the crack.

The overhead lights are bright and sting his eyes. He slides behind a stack of boxes for cover so he can adjust and then survey the room.

What he sees is…unexpected. The high-ceiling structure appears to be a loading and distribution warehouse with at least four dozen bay doors along one side of the building. The rest of the room contains a series of conveyor belts that seem to deliver the goods to the assigned bay. Fifty to sixty fit men, dressed in blue uniforms, work at the ends of these conveyors, loading boxes into at least twenty large lorries. The boxes are marked with a familiar logo, and John has to think for a moment before he realizes it’s a common stationary brand. Paper. Envelopes. Notepads. He’s seen boxes like these in the office at the clinic. _Is this a legitimate business?_ John thinks. _Do these workers know there are hostages in the basement?_ He knows better though; he and Sherlock have already encountered several cases where a crime syndicate ran a legitimate business as a front. He knew that some of the most posh restaurants in London were simply facades to larger dealings. So John couldn’t assume either way if the men working were good men who might help him escape or bad men who would throw him back in the basement. But how to exit the building, wrapped in several metres of chain, without drawing attention?

John is working on his plan when he sees a brightly lit office far to his left. It’s up four steps and has windows that overlook the loading floor. There’s no one inside.

_I need some insurance,_ he thinks as he edges along the warehouse, hidden behind boxes, and up the stairs. He’ll be in plain sight, but he needs this. He crawls across the office and wiggles the mouse on the nearest computer. It zings to life, its fan whirring, and John quickly activates the internet browser. It takes forever to load. John tries to take deep breaths; if he’s caught here, he’s done. He has no alternative exit, and after three days with no food except for two slices of dry bread, he’s not going to be much of a fight. Not to mention his buggered hands and aching joints. And the heavy chain wrapped around his torso. The browser finally loads, and from where he crouches in front of the desk, John reaches up and types in the URL for Sherlock’s website. It flashes on the screen and he scrolls to the bottom of the latest entry—to the comment bar. Something rustles behind him, and John can hear footfalls on the steps. His fingers are shaking as he types:

**stationary fac dist. bsmnt. sos. jw.**

He hits “submit” and closes the browser window, praying it had time to process, and then he scrambles around the back of the desk on his knees just as someone reaches the doorway. The figure pauses and for a moment all John hears is breathing. John suspects his rattling chains have already given him away, but he slows his breath just the same and stays stock still.

Slow footfalls approach the desk and the figure sits in the wooden chair. The chair groans under his weight. For another long moment, there is silence. Then:

“You have two choices.” The voice. John shudders. King Grimm. “Both choices end in the basement, but one is less appealing than the other.”

John’s not sure if he should answer. He knows running isn’t an option; he’d make it ten feet before the bigger man was on him. _What would Sherlock do?_ _Out-smart him._ Slowly, John un-loops a length of chain from his body but holds it close so it’s not apparent. He conceals the ring-bolt in his left hand. He does this in almost one movement as he sits back on his heels and meets the eyes of King Grimm across the desk.

King Grimm is a broad-shouldered man with a wide face and steely eyes. His black hair is slicked back with gel and he wears a black collared shirt. In fact, he’s not disfigured or obviously disturbed as John had expected to see; King Grimm probably walks the street a perfectly unobvious man—except that John sees the hardness of his eyes and hears the cruelness in his voice.

“You’re a resourceful man, Mr. Holmes. But you should have opened the envelope.”

“Just thought I’d spice up your game.” John’s voice is steady when he speaks, though his insides tremble.

“It’s my story. I set the rules. You’ll be punished for this.” He leans forward and steeples his fingers on the desk. “On your feet. You can go to the basement conscious and willing, or not. You choose.”

John’s muscles cry out as he lifts the heavy chain and shackle, but he chooses to rise. Really, he chooses not to sustain another head injury…at least willingly. He drags his feet as he rounds the desk, and it’s only partly for effect. King Grimm stands, watching with an aloof expression but an icy gaze. John grimaces inside, because he knows what he’s about to do will end horribly, but John Watson is a fighter.

As John passes the large man, he waits until the moment King Grimm is just in his peripheral—the moment before their power dynamic will change—and then John suddenly spins, throws the chain over the man’s neck, twists, and pulls with all his body weight to the ground. King Grimm collapses with a cry. John jerks the chain up and then down, bringing the man with him, and for a moment he thinks he has the upper hand…until King Grimm grabs the chain. His meaty hands latch on and jerk the chain forward, pulling John off his feet. He catches himself on his hands, but the impact on his wounded palms is so bad his vision blurs. Hands grab his shoulders and flip him effortlessly. _Shit._ King Grimm looms over him, smiling, and all John can think of is _Please not the head again_ before he feels the blow of knuckles on his cheekbone. John’s world goes dark, but he holds on to consciousness enough to know he’s being moved. There’s a loud ringing all around him, and he’s not sure if the sound is in his head or real. It’s loud. It hurts his addled brain and makes his eyes ache and he just wants it to _stop._ He feels each step on his lower back as he’s dragged, and he tries to fight—to kick at anything—but the world is spinning and suddenly he knows that spinning isn’t entirely in his head as he feels each concrete step to the basement collide with his back, thigh, shoulder, and head. He stops, tangled in chain, pressed up against the cold door—wishing to goodness that King Grimm just leaves him there. As he feels thick hands grab him by the collar and drag him across the basement, he tries to disassociate: he imagines it’s just a cold night at 221b and his bedroom is chilly, but he can hear Sherlock playing a soothing melody downstairs. Soft, long tones reach his ears. He’ll go down to Sherlock. They’ll have a bit of scotch. They’ll reminisce about an old case. They’ll talk in hushed voices while Sherlock continues to gently draw his bow across his violin, and John will warm up and—

John can’t disassociate anymore. King Grimm slams his chest up against a pillar, wraps John’s arms around it, and handcuffs his wrists. John feels a hand on the back of his head as King Grimm presses John’s face against the cool concrete. “Try to escape now,” he growls. “I dare you.”

Johns sits back on his heels. He’s dimly aware of Mal in his peripheral, sitting with his knees drawn up.

“You didn’t even open my little gift to you,” says that terrible voice. “What have I told you about the rules, Mr. Holmes? I make them, and if you don’t want to play, I can just kill you now.”

John’s head clears a little. _No, not yet. Give Sherlock time to get to me._

“Fine,” John slurs. “I’ll play.”

“You’re quite motivated to survive. You must have something worth living for.” John’s eyes won’t focus, but he can hear King Grimm pacing in circles around him. Then the tear of the envelope opening. “How can you play the game when you can’t even read the rules, though?”

“I’ll help!” came a small voice from the corner. “Don’t….don’t hurt him. I’ll read it.”

John wants to say no. He doesn’t want Mal helping him in any way, but the game must continue if only to buy some time. He pushes his forehead into the concrete and wills his brain to focus on Mal’s voice.

“It says:

What does man love more than life,

Fear more than death or mortal strife?

What the poor have, the rich require,

And what contented men desire?

What the miser spends and the spendthrift saves,

And all men carry to their graves?”

Even if he were clear-headed, John is sure the words don’t make sense. Just gibberish. _Was any of that even a sentence?_ He works to remember the words: life, strife, desire, graves. But John already knows what’s about to happen. He knows that King Grimm has won this round, and possibly Mal, too. He has to bite or he’ll die.

_I’d like to call a friend,_ he thinks. “Mal. Help.”

King Grimm laughs loud and full. There’s mirth there, actually, and the only thing keeping John from total despair at this sound is that he has a secret. That he’s sure King Grimm didn’t see the message he sent.

“Maleki, are you going to help your friend? Please do, but,” his voice drops, “remember that nothing in my dungeon is free. Name your price first.”

Mal is silent for a long while, and John’s afraid that Mal won’t play. _You have to play!_

“Mal, name something. Just do it,” John says as loudly as he can muster.

“Your trust!” Mal cries. Then quieter: “Just trust me that I’m telling you the truth about my intentions.”

John nods. “It’s yours.” And if John’s honest, it is. Mal’s voice is panicked and his fear genuine, and even if he is the part of Rumpelstiltskin in this mad charade, John is starting to believe that Mal is as much a victim as himself.

“It’s nothing, then. The answer is _nothing._ ”

John’s chest constricts and his stomach drops. The answer was so obvious, and he played another round in this game because he couldn’t get his brain wrapped around a stupid riddle. _Stupid, stupid._

He hears King Grimm clap his hands slowly, almost ironically, and then his footfalls get farther and farther.

“Well done, boys. Mr. Holmes, you disappoint, but this has been such a treat. On to the next round then.”

The door slams closed. John’s body starts to tremble. He knows the story: no matter how he considers it, the next round means he’d have to give up everything that is important to him…


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My huge apologies that it's been so long since I posted a chapter. I was away, and then I was catching up from being away. I've tried to make it up to you by posting an extra-long chapter! Enjoy. :)

John spends most of the day with his forehead resting on the pillar in front of him and his mind on Sherlock. He drifts in and out of a fitful, dizzy sleep, and wakes with a start whenever his forehead slides off the pillar. His dreams are echoes of Sherlock’s voice calling his name and in the haze John can’t figure whether there’s actually a voice ricocheting off the basement walls, or if it’s in his head, bouncing about between his need to eat, and to rest his weary arms, and to sleep without fear. Sherlock will come, he’s sure. John practically spelled out his location for him. _Just come sooner rather than later, you mad git._ His mind tracks back to happier times: _If convenient, come at once. If inconvenient, come anyway…_

Late in the day, John wakes to the faint smell of smoke and his mind clears.

“Mal? Do you smell that?”

He hears Mal grunt and shift. “Yeah. Bloody fire alarm again, too.”

John listens, and yes, he can hear a ringing from above. No alarms in the basement, obviously.

Then, the sprinkler system activates.

“Great.” John tips his head back and lets the stale water fall on his face. It’s refreshing for a moment, but John’s been wet and cold for three days and the novelty quickly ceases. Just the same, he sticks out his tongue and laps up the moisture.

Neither he nor Mal say anything. The smell of smoke gets stronger, and John figures one of two things has happened: (1) King Grimm is burning down the building with him and Mal inside, or (2) Sherlock is here.

His heart quickens when he thinks his friend may be just above him. He rattles his handcuffs experimentally, as if he may find a new way to unlock them, and then stares at the ceiling hopefully. As the water drips down his face, John realizes that if it isn’t Sherlock, he may die. They’re in a stationary warehouse. This building could not be more flammable. The sprinkler system is clearly not modern or remotely effective against that kind of raging fire. Even if Sherlock is here, it’s about to get hot and the whole building will burn to the ground perhaps faster than they can get out—and he’s handcuffed around a pillar and Mal’s still shackled to the wall.

“Shit,” John spits as he puts it all together. “We’re in trouble here.”

As if he can read John’s thoughts, Mal jumps to his feet and runs to where his chain attaches. John sees that at some point during his unconsciousness, his cell-mate fashioned a pallet tool much like his own. Mal starts beating at the wall with a fury, and though he’s still probably hours away from freedom, John has a moment in which he’s happy to see that at least Mal is taking _some_ action. John, on the other hand, is well and truly screwed. Unless he chews an arm off.

The heat above starts to radiate through the floor, causing the sprinkler water to transform into a thick mist—sizzling and evaporating as it fills the room and huddles close to the hot ceiling. It’s gets hazy and the mist becomes heavy smoke. John stays low. He can’t see Mal anymore, but he can hear him grunting and slamming his pallet tool into the wall. _Please, Sherlock, let it be you!_

Then, the door slams open, bouncing off the wall, and John stretches around, squinting, to see through the mist. A figure: tall, lean, wearing a long robe—no, no, it’s a long coat!

“Sherlock! Sherlock here!” John yells, and he’s surprised his voice comes out so strong when his whole body—shoulders, back, arms, lung, throat, eyes—feels _so_ weak.

Sherlock’s silhouette is a welcome spectre as it runs towards John and glides, guitar-slide style, to a halt in front of John. Gloved hands are on his face, and John nearly hums with relief at the familiar leather smell. Sherlock’s harried face is close and searching.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” John nods, and he shakes his hands to draw attention to the cuffs. “Get these cuffs off me.”

“Did he hurt you?” Sherlock’s voice is a mix of uncertainty and fear—neither emotion John sees in his friend often.

“No. Yes. Did you light the building on fire? It’s getting hot, now get these cuffs off.”

“Of course I lit the building on fire,” Sherlock responds as he crawls around the pillar to John’s cuffed hands. Then: “No, no, no, no, nonono…” Sherlock chants as he turns John’s hands upwards and stares down at the deep, clotted wounds. His voice is wrought with distress, a sound so terrible that John feels his stomach drop with empathy. Sherlock’s voice sounds like John’s hands feel.

“Sherlock!” John grunts, and his friend’s face flies around the pillar to meet his. “Handcuffs. Get the handcuffs off.”

Sherlock quickly rustles in his inner jacket pockets for the compact lock set that he always carries, and even though John can see Sherlock’s gloved hands trembling, he releases the handcuffs in just a few seconds.

John immediately lilts backwards, his muscles cramped from being cuffed around the pillar for so long. Firm hands press against his back and it takes him a moment to realize that they’re Sherlock’s, and that the chest pressed against his is Sherlock’s too. _Is Sherlock hugging me?_ John is enveloped into Sherlock’s space, chest-to-chest, so close he can feel Sherlock’s ragged breaths counterpoint to his own. Sherlock smells like home: leather, old books, newsprint, curry, and a hint of ether. Sherlock smells wonderful, and despite the urgency of the situation, John finds himself pressing his face into Sherlock’s shoulder and just breathing. Even with Sherlock’s strong arms holding his frame like a vice, it’s the first full breath he’s had in over three days.

“There was no evidence, John,” he can hear Sherlock whispering into his hair. So softly. “You were gone and there was no trail. I tracked you to the park, but there was so much noise—so many footprints, so much left shed from every other person but you. It rained and I didn’t start searching at first. There was so little left when I got there. I failed.”

 _Failed?_ John is being rescued! John is going home! His best friend is wrapped around him and getting out of the burning building seems the least of his worries now. There is no failure. John lifts his head to meet Sherlock’s eyes, and finds that their faces are so close that they share the depleting oxygen in the room. “Forgive me,” Sherlock whispers, and then his warm lips press softly against John’s in the most tender manner—like a footnote to his whispered plea. And John is startled at first; not by the kiss, but by the blossoming warmth in his stomach. Sherlock’s lips draw away all too quick, and John remains, his own lips slightly parted, his eyes closed.

There’s a large crack from overhead, maybe an overhead beam falling in the warehouse above, and Sherlock is back in action. “Time to go,” he says, scooping his shoulder under John’s arm and lifting John until he has his feet under him. John still has the heavy chain draped around his body, and he thinks briefly not to put too much weight on Sherlock—his knee, after all—but then he forces himself to focus on the bigger problem. “Stay low,” Sherlock calls, as he grasps John’s wrist and start pulling him toward the door.

“Wait!” says a faraway voice. John can’t see Mal through the smoke. Sweat pours down the back of John’s neck as the temperature continues to rise.

“We have to get Mal,” he calls, pulling in the opposite direction. He meets resistance from his friend, and turns to find a puzzled look on Sherlock’s face. “He’s another prisoner. King Grimm kidnapped him, too.” John shakes his wrist free of Sherlock’s hold and takes three steps toward Mal, then stops. _What if we get separated?_ “He’s chained to the wall, Sherlock. We can’t leave him.”

He feels smooth leather slip around his wrist again. Sherlock pulls him toward the door. “I passed a fire cabinet. There was an axe. Come on!” They run up the stairwell and Sherlock pauses at the top door. “It’s going to be hot.” Then he shoulders the door open and John’s skin is assaulted by the scorching heat. The air is thick and John knows that it’s not the fire they have to worry about, it’s smoke inhalation. He presses his bloody hand into Sherlock’s back, forcing his friend to his hands and knees. Sherlock leads, crawling alongside the wall, and dodging dozens of crates ablaze. The roof is a torrid inferno of flame and black smoke. The old building is breaking apart at the beams and window frames as the wood splits and the flames from piles of packed stationary lick at the highest points of the old warehouse. “Here!” Sherlock yells. His voice is nearly lost in the roar of the fire. He stands where a red box is mounted on the wall. John stays on all fours as Sherlock breaks the glass and retrieves the small axe. He drops back to the floor, coughing and breathing hard, but nods his head back to the basement door. They crawl, side by side, and John starts to cough too—his lungs feel like they’re full of water—as the smoke drifts closer to the floor. The chain wrapped around his torso is heavy, and John can feel that it’s actually starting to heat up against his thin shirt. They nearly miss the door the air is so murky, and Sherlock stands again to force it open. John tumbles through, skidding down the first few steps, and then turns to watch Sherlock haul the door shut against the immense air pressure the fire is generating. Sherlock skids down to his step, and they both struggle for full breaths, coughing and hacking but their lungs don’t clear.

“We can’t---get out---that way…” John wheezes, and then starts in on another coughing fit.

Sherlock simply lifts the axe, takes John by the arm, and single-mindedly leads them down the stairs.

In the basement, the sprinkler system has failed and the mist-smoke is gathering at the high ceiling. The basement feels tropical but smells like burnt toast. John leads Sherlock to where Mal is shackled, and they find the man slumped against the wall in defeat. John prods Mal to his feet as Sherlock swings the axe once, twice, and three times before the ring shears off. Mal nods at Sherlock as he gathers his chain, wrapping it around his body much like John has.

“Windows,” Sherlock gasps, and points to the narrow street-level windows that let in all the water John so despised. Now, their salvation, if they can boost each other up several metres.

John knows he’s not as brilliant as Sherlock, but he’s still a resourceful man. His lungs burn but he still runs across to where he knows the old forklift is parked. Slipping into the driver’s seat, he sends a silent thank-you to whoever left the keys in the glove compartment. He shoves the keys in the ignition and turns. _Please work, please work, please work._ It struggles, but the battery has just enough juice, and after one more try, the little engine roars to life. “Yes!” John yells, as he puts it into gear and urges the slow machine to the closest window. As soon as it’s in park, John is waving his hand at Sherlock and Mal to jump on the prongs of the fork. Sherlock hops up and steadies himself—a foot on each prong—and helps to steady Mal as well. He gives John a wave and John raises the lift. His mouth goes dry as he watches his friend’s head and shoulders disappear into the smoke. When he’s sure they’re high enough, he turns the whole machine off and starts his own scramble up onto prongs. Sherlock’s strong hands grab his forearms and hoist him onto a prong; John can feel the Sherlock’s whole body is convulsing as he coughs uncontrollably, but his friend still shoves him up and toward the window. John wants to protest, but there’s no time—he struggles through the window, the chains making it difficult to slide against the sill, but Mal’s on the other side pulling his shoulders and he can feel Sherlock pushing his thighs and in a moment he’s through! John flips around and reaches through for Sherlock, and for one terrifying moment his fingers thread through empty smoke, before a hand meets his and he’s pulling, pulling, pulling Sherlock through the tiny window.

It’s a rush and a blur. Sherlock passes out from coughing just as his knees pass the sill. John tugs at his friend’s body, using the rest of this strength to drag Sherlock all the way out of the building, and when he turns to Mal for help, he sees at least a dozen firefighters running towards them. Then they are all being lifted, and fire blankets are being thrown over them, and John can feel the heat dissipate as they move away from the building, and someone is stretching an oxygen mask over his face, and he gets a full clean breath that hurts so bad but hell it’s a breath he needed so badly, and they’re putting him on a stretcher, and _where’s Sherlock?!_ He whips around and sees his friend being laid out on a stretcher a few metres away. John listens to the medics: “Do we need to intubate? Is he breathing on his own?” The other medic lifts his head from Sherlock’s chest. “He’s breathing. Get him in the truck.”

A wash of relief flows through John’s body. Sherlock is breathing. They’re going to the hospital. The nightmare is over. He lets himself drift into his own unconsciousness.

 

* * *

It’s another 24 hours before Sherlock and John are released to return to Baker Street. The first thing John does is take the longest shower he’s ever taken. His body is battered worse that he can remember, and funnily enough, it’s the smaller injuries that hurt more. He was cleared of concussion at the hospital, though he did receive a stern lecture about incurring further head injuries ( _as if I’ll have a choice about it)._ His hands had been cleaned, stitched where necessary, and wrapped. The damage looked worse that was, though it was going to hurt to perform _any_ action with his hands for quite some time. _I wonder if Sherlock can be convinced to cook, clean, or do laundry?_ He has a hairline fracture on his cheekbone from when King Grimm hit him, but that will heal quickly. No, the worst pain is from the dozens and dozens of small bruises he sustained when King Grimm threw him down the stairs; made worse by the chain that was wrapped around his body. His torso looks like a cartoon speckled cat—black, blue, yellow, purple—and he can’t see his back but he knows it’s worse.

At the hospital, Sherlock had been unruly. After regaining consciousness, he was insistent that they be released. He only relented (and shut up) when John became just as insistent that Sherlock accept the recommended humidified oxygen therapy if he wanted to actually form a full sentence without coughing. Secretly, John was pleased to see Sherlock so vocal and abrasive. He’d been so quiet since his return, and this was the first time John had seen him light up. Sherlock accepted the therapy (spending the rest of his day breathing from a thick tube) but he continued to bat away every nurse that tried to check his vitals.

Lestrade arrived a few hours after they were moved out of Emergency and into a private room that had miraculously come available ( _Mycroft?_ John wondered). Once he’d ascertained they would both live, he tore a strip off Sherlock:

“Because, Sherlock,” Lestrade patiently explained, “Sending a text that says ‘ _Going to rescue John. Send back up. Paper factory basement_ ’ doesn’t count as working as a team and keeping me in the loop as we’d discussed. It was reckless, and stupid, and frankly I’m not surprised, but if you ever pull this shit again I will find a reason to arrest you just so I can enjoy locking you in a room without stimulation and watching you go loony from boredom.” He turned to John, who was sitting on the next bed also breathing from a humidified oxygen tube. “Honestly John, if he hadn’t of lit the building on fire—”

“It was obvious,” Sherlock cut in. “An idiot could have deduced where he was.”

“There are three paper factories in London and—”

“And one of them is adjacent to the Thames where the soil conditions are too saturated for a basement, and the second is owned by foreign hands and primarily staffed by illegal immigrants—that particular factory is also a front for a cocaine smuggling ring. That’s very serious business, so it’s unlikely that an unstable man like Grimm would be affiliated. Being that the third factory is a heritage building—with a basement—and owned by a European conglomerate, it was obviously the most likely location.”

“Wait.” Lestrade blinked. “What paper factory is smuggling coc—”

“Sherlock,” John interrupted. “Why did you light the building on fire?”

Sherlock breathed deep from the tube before answering. “I needed the workers out so I could get in and find you. I pulled the fire alarm, but none of the idiots evacuated. They all just stood around and looked dumb, so I started a controlled fire on the East end. It would have stayed contained, but some moron opened the Western bay door and the pressure drew the fire in.”

“Still feels a little…careless, for you,” Lestrade said carefully.

Sherlock lowered his eyes, and he pursed his lips. John had seen this expression a few times since Sherlock’s return. He looked hard at his friend and wondered if what he thought he was seeing could be true: _embarrassment?_

“The alarm,” John said, drawing Lestrade’s attention back to him. “They thought it was a fire drill. Early this morning during my escape, Grimm pulled the alarm to evacuate the building so he could get me back in the basement unseen. I thought the ringing was in my head, but I’m sure now it was the alarm.  He’s some kind of administrator there. I’m sure he told the workers it was a faulty alarm or a drill.”

Sherlock nodded like at least he knew why the workers didn’t evacuate now, but he’d gone quiet and inside himself again.

“You held everybody?”John asked.

“Everyone that was still there when we arrived,” Lestrade said. “I can have a line up ready for you tomorrow morning. Are you sure you can make a positive identity?”

John nodded sharply. “And Maleki? I haven’t seen him since we got here.”

“Transferred to a different hospital. His feet needed special attention. He asked me to say, though, ‘Sorry about the shoes.’ You know what that means?” John nodded and Lestrade continued. “We’ll have him in for questioning once he’s released. I’ll make sure you and Sherlock are present.” Lestrade looked at Sherlock, who had lain back on his bed and was breathing through the tube with his eyes closed. Lestrade nodded, knowingly, then smiled at John and took his leave.

John and Sherlock had been released the next morning, and they went straight to Scotland Yard so John could see the line up, but King Grimm wasn’t in it. John wasn’t surprised. He probably left the first time Sherlock had pulled the alarm. John was concerned that King Grimm had escaped. He was even more concerned since John’s story was incomplete. He hadn’t told Sherlock yet, but John was sure King Grimm would be back for his ending.

It’s easy to put his concerns aside though, as John steps out of his warm shower, throws his dressing gown on and pads into the kitchen. He hasn’t bothered to towel his hair (it hurts his hands too much) and he laughs when Sherlock whips the towel off his shoulder from behind and towels it for him.

“Come here,” Sherlock says, leading him to the kitchen table. He’s laid out antiseptic, gauze, and tape. And a cup of tea. John smiles as Sherlock settles in a chair and pushes the other out with his foot for John.

“Tea first, please,” John says, sitting and reaching for the cup. He doesn’t even touch it before the heat off the mug warns him that this won’t work.

“Let me,” Sherlock whispers. He lifts the cup with both his hands and holds it before John’s lips. John slides his hands over Sherlock’s, and skin-on-skin doesn’t hurt so badly. Sherlock’s skin is cool and soothing. With Sherlock’s hands protecting his own, he guides the mug to his lips and takes a blissful sip.

“Perfect. Thank you.”

Sherlock scoots his chair closer, his knees resting on the outside of John’s, and he leans forward so his elbows rest on his kneecaps and he waits with the mug poised. “Take your time,” he says.

John is shell-shocked. Never has Sherlock given John’s needs this sort of time and attention. John expects Sherlock to jump up at any moment and start pacing, or fidgeting, or even throw on his coat and march out the door. But Sherlock stays. John guides his friend’s hands with each sip, and after his third, Sherlock tips the mug his way and takes a sip, too. John’s lips break into a grin. He’s sharing a quiet cup of tea with Sherlock. And Sherlock is smiling too. In silence, they tip the mug between them, Sherlock’s hands like the counterweight of their pendulum, and every time John places his sore palms on his friend’s hands, he feels a little burst of warmth in his chest. Inside, John laments that he won’t be able to relieve Sherlock’s arthritic hands with massage for awhile, but this—the warm tea soothing Sherlock’s hands and John’s mind—seems to work for both of them. As the tea disappears, they lean closer to one another. John’s body relaxes as the scents of home and Sherlock and perfectly-made-tea overtake him.

John is feeling cozy and sentimental when he says: “Thank you for looking for me.”

“Always,” is Sherlock’s reply, though he doesn’t look up from where their hands meet over the mug.

“You didn’t fail. There’s nothing to forgive. In fact, I’m deeply relieved.”

This time Sherlock’s eyes come up to meet his. “I never stopped looking, but I couldn’t find you, John. You had disappeared and I didn’t realize it until you were missing for nearly a day. I thought you were angry with me and had gone to stay with Harry or Lestrade. By the time I realized you were gone, all the hard evidence in the park had been washed away by the storm, and I had nothing else to go on.” Sherlock takes a deep breath and coughs a few times before continuing. “You saved yourself, John.”

Sherlock sets the mug down and picks up the antiseptic. Ever so gently, he takes John’s hand and rubs the cream into the wounds. John hisses when it stings. He wishes Sherlock was massaging his hands, not treating them. He wishes he could enjoy this.

“And the kiss?” John whispers after a while.

“Just sentiment. It was a lapse. Forget it.” Sherlock’s voice is even and quiet when he speaks, and his eyes focus on taping the gauze to John’s hand. They are silent for a minute while Sherlock finishes one and moves to the other hand. “I’m off the Grimm case. He’ll go into hiding now. We were close to getting him, and Lestrade has a whole set of witnesses with descriptions and information on his daily life. Who knows, maybe Lestrade will catch him on his own…but I doubt it. But I’ll take a break as you requested.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll be here to care for you, John, while your hands heal.” He starts wrapping the second hand. “Are there any other physical injuries you sustained that I should know about?”

 _Ironic,_ thinks Johns. _I have to tell you about my injuries, but you keep yours from me._ Just the same, after Sherlock secures the last bit of tape, John uses his wrapped paws to draw open his dressing gown just enough for Sherlock to see his chest.  Sherlock hisses and looks away.

“It hurts to do pretty much anything right now. You should see my back. I’m not sure how I’ll sleep.”

With grim lips, Sherlock nods and rises. He goes to his bedroom and returns with both his pillows, and then to the sitting room where he gathers up all the throw cushions. His arms loaded, he pauses at the bottom of the stairs. “Come on, then.” John isn’t tired, but he follows just the same.

In John’s bedroom, Sherlock draws the covers back and starts arranging pillows. While he does, John awkwardly pulls a pair of pajama bottoms on using his mitten-like hands, and then sheds his dressing gown to the floor. When Sherlock stands and turns, John wishes he’d kept it on and slept in it. Sherlock’s face falls and his hands clench open and closed. John knows he’s a sight, and only made worse when he realizes this is the first time Sherlock has seen his shoulder scars as well.

Sherlock circles him. His eyes move rapidly over John body, and John knows to stay still and silent while Sherlock absorbs and organizes all the information. He jumps though, when Sherlock’s fingers brush upon his back and over the rippled and pocked skin of the exit wound. Sherlock runs his fingers up and over John’s shoulder to the entrance wound as he steps in front of him. Then he sighs, and his hand slides to the back of John’s neck. He guides John’s forehead to lay gently on his own. And John loves this contact. He loves that not only is he allowed to touch Sherlock (if only for medical reasons), but now Sherlock is touching him. And the kiss? Was it just sentiment in the heat of the moment? John can’t be sure, but regardless of Sherlock’s intentions, John has some thinking to do regarding his own reaction. Sherlock Holmes gave him the briefest of kisses, and he liked it.

“I will take care of you, my friend,” Sherlock whispers.

“Breakfast in bed, then? Foot massages and tea on demand?” John says with a smile, trying to lighten Sherlock’s serious mood.

“Something like that.” With his hand still lightly resting on John’s neck, Sherlock guides him to the bed. “Sleep on your left side; least amount of bruising there. You’ll sleep soundly as long as you don’t roll over. I’ll arrange the pillows to prevent it.”

“Take a pillow for yourself,” John says as he slowly lowers himself onto his side in the bed. Sherlock leans over him, gently placing pillows on either side of his body.

“No, I won’t sleep.” When he seems satisfied, Sherlock draws just the sheet over John, and then turns to close the curtains against the mid-afternoon light. “I’ll be here,” he says, as he sits in John’s reading chair at the window. John is going to protest, but when Sherlock steeples his fingers and closes his eyes, he realizes that Sherlock is going to his mind palace. He has much to organize. So John breathes deep the smell of home, and sleeps easy knowing that Sherlock is there to watch over against bad men and fairy tale villains. 


	5. Chapter Five

Sherlock lasts three weeks as John’s full-time caretaker, and John knows from the beginning that it won’t last, but for three lovely weeks, he is waited upon. Of course, Sherlock doesn’t cook, clean, or do laundry. They’re both lucky to have Mrs. Hudson, who seems determined to fatten them up with her scrumptious baking and endless variety of casseroles. John is actually relieved that Sherlock doesn’t try cooking, and on the few nights that Mrs. Hudson goes out to play cards with her girls, Sherlock thankfully orders in. Mrs. Hudson does the cleaning and laundry, too. Though she draws the line at cleaning any of Sherlock’s experiments, of which he runs several over their time as shut-ins. And they are shut-ins; Sherlock doesn’t leave the flat once (not even to get body parts at St. Bart’s). John finds this sort of odd (truthfully, by week two he’s waiting for Sherlock to either have a mental break and regress to a childlike state or to literally explode), but Sherlock continues to surprise John by entertaining himself with relatively harmless experiments, reading, internet surfing, and of course, waiting on John.

It’s the ‘waiting on John’ part that John particularly enjoys.

On Day One, it starts with tea. From the moment he wakes, John’s mug is full, fresh, and hot. Sherlock practically hovers over him, checking the status of his tea. John likes it at first, but quickly discovers that this frequency of tea-therapy means that he has to pee every twenty minutes and so he and Sherlock agree that tea is to be supplied only when requested.

Besides tea, Sherlock is brilliant at providing an endless supply of reading material and biscuits (John is sure he’s stealing the biscuits from Mrs. Hudson’s pantry). He takes care of John in other ways, too: he is always on hand to bring John an extra pillow or blanket; he is enthusiastic to ease John’s boredom with a detailed explanation of his latest experiment on, for example, the breakdown of plasma stains on different types of natural and synthetic fibres (“Thank goodness I had some plasma in the freezer, John. Can you imagine how dreadful this time in the flat would be if I hadn’t planned ahead?”); and, on one particularly entertaining Tuesday (the same night Mrs. Hudson surprised them with a few cheap bottles of Moscato leftover from her own night out with the girls), Sherlock had John in a fit of giggles when together they composed theme songs on Sherlock’s violin for Lestrade, Sally Donovan, Anderson, and best of all, Mycroft.

John’s second favourite part of Sherlock ‘waiting on John’ was established on Day Three, when despite several attempts, John discovered he needed help with a certain aspect of his personal grooming.

“Sherlock, I know it’s a lot to ask, but my hands are just too sore and swollen. I can’t really do it properly, and I’m starting to itch. Please?”

“Yes, fine, but you’ll have to assist me with the…mechanics of it.”

“It’s just washing hair. There’s not much that’s…mechanical about it. Stop being so dramatic and go start the shower.”

Sherlock did have a point, though, about certain practicalities that needed to be worked out. Like where/how did John stand/sit and should he strip down completely and what’s the best angle for Sherlock to work from and how does he too avoid getting soaked in the process? After some awkward shuffling, John does consider suggesting they use the kitchen sink but he’s loath to put his face and hair near the place so many failed experiments have been washed away. In the end, Sherlock makes a few suggestions about the…mechanics…and they figure it out. John is not an overly modest man, but he finds that he’s self-conscious about being naked in front of Sherlock, so he strips to just his pants and, careful to keep his wrapped hands out of the water, steps into the shower spray just long enough to wet his hair. Sherlock turns the water off and John slowly lowers himself to sit in the tub. He draws his knees up to his chest and looks up at Sherlock.

“You’re sure you can do this?”

“Yes, yes,” he huffs. “It’s just washing the transport.” But John can see the dubious expression on his face as a pajama-clad, barefoot Sherlock steps into the tub, lathers his hands with John’s shampoo, crouches behind John, and then stops…

“Okay then, how do you want me to do this?”

“Just like you wash your own.”

Sherlock takes a deep breath (and John fights a grin) before he pushes his long, dexterous fingers into John’s hair. John’s never had his hair washed before, and over all the years he’s washed his own hair, it’s never been anything more than a monotonous maintenance-related task, like brushing your teeth or clipping your toenails. So, John is unprepared for just how _good_ it feels to have another person wash your hair, plus Sherlock’s hands are…talented. He effortlessly achieves the right balance of pressure and tempo with his fingertips as they massage over John’s scalp. John’s whole body reacts to the sensation. But of course Sherlock would be excellent with his hands—he’s a musician, after all. And John is happy to be his instrument.

“Jesus, Sherlock, is this really how you wash your hair?” John practically purrs.

Sherlock’s fingers stop. “Yes, am I doing it wrong?”

“No, no, you’re doing it _so_ right. Keep going.” Sherlock’s fingers start working again. John is in heaven. John has left Baker Street and he’s floating somewhere in the clouds above London. All the aches and pains are just low buzzes below the intensity of this lovely sensation. It’s unintended when John lets out a low moan of pleasure and Sherlock’s hands lift off his scalp.

“John! Did I hurt you?”

John laughs. “No, sorry! That was a good sound. I was enjoying it.”

“Oh.” Sherlock slowly lowers his hands again and continues massaging. “I don’t have a lot of experience with causing another person…pleasure.”

John knows that this is a sensitive subject, and he’s surprised Sherlock is pursuing it, but Sherlock’s been full of surprises lately. “I’m sorry if it startled you. I can stay quiet.”

“No, no! On the contrary, now that I understand the sound was a pleasurable one, I would actually appreciate the feedback. Please, carry on.”

Of course, Sherlock’s encouragement only serves to make John feel self-conscious and awkward about the whole situation, and since Sherlock has been massaging his head for far longer than John has ever washed his hair, John says instead, “Next round, maybe. Now it’s time to rinse.”

They stand and there’s another shuffle of uncertainty as they try to figure the best way to rinse. In the end, Sherlock spins the tap on in a huff, and seemingly unconcerned about soaking his pajamas, forcibly backs John into the spray and starts to run his hands through John’s hair to wash out the shampoo. To protect his own hands from the spray, John places them in the most natural place: with his wrists resting on Sherlock’s shoulders. John closes his eyes and enjoys the sensation for a moment, and when he thinks his hair must be rinsed, he opens his eyes again and finds he is very, very close to a soaking Sherlock. John realizes that he’s in trouble. It’s all too much. Sherlock’s beautiful hands running over his skull; his wet cotton shirt plastered to his well-defined chest and stomachand broad shoulders and—John has a problem. Something is stirring down low that’s never stirred for another man. And dressed in nothing but his pants, John will soon be able to do little to hide it.

“Okay, okay, that’s good,” he says, turning from Sherlock. “Ahhh…I’m getting chilled. Can you pass me my dressing gown?” Though John’s aware he could be faking it, Sherlock seems oblivious to John’s…situation…and with a shrug he nonchalantly reaches past John, flips the water off, and then retrieves the dressing gown. John wraps it around himself tightly and breaths deep. He thinks the danger has passed, and for a moment everything goes back to normal: Sherlock throws a towel over this head from behind and gives him a rough dry that sets John laughing. John pushes the towel away and turns to make a sarcastic comment when he finds Sherlock is stripping off this wet shirt, revealing that tight, lithe body beneath, and as Sherlock hooks his thumbs into his pajama bottoms, John simply makes a sharp right turn and leaves the room. _Damn him! Could that man be any more sexy and oblivious…and when did I start thinking of Sherlock as sexy…_

He loiters in the kitchen for a moment because he doesn’t know what to do next. His body settles now that his proximity to Sherlock has increased, and a minute or so later, Sherlock wanders out of the loo in a dressing gown, asking, “Do you feel better?” John nods. “Tea, then?” John nods. “And the bandages should be changed.” John nods. Sherlock squints at him for a moment, and John wonders if Sherlock is really as unaware as he appears. _Flat mates don’t wash each other’s hair and share showers. Not like that, anyway. But you really don’t know, do you?_ Sherlock goes about clicking the kettle and putting out antiseptic, gauze, etc., and touched that it’s Day Three and Sherlock is still attending to him, John decides that flatmates can do whatever the hell they want with each other. Who’s making the rules here, anyway?

John knows that this slope is as slippery as the tub, but the next morning when Sherlock asks, “Would you like your hair washed this morning?”, John finds himself nodding. _Why, why did you just nod to that?_ But he wants it, and since meeting Sherlock and shaking off the cane, John has been careful not to live in denial. Wherever this is leading him, John can’t deny that he craves more contact with Sherlock. So, the morning routine is set: wake up late, frustrate John under the guise of “washing the transport,” then the re-treatment and wrapping of his hands, and finally, tea.

Tea is when they talk about cases and take visitors if Sherlock is up to seeing anyone. John knows that he’s enabling Sherlock’s recent tendency to isolate himself, but in their close company, John starts to see a pattern that may play into the last four months of Sherlock’s odd behaviour. _Anxiety_.

On Day Four Molly knocks on their front door, comes up for tea (bearing a care package with chocolates and John’s favourite scotch, because it’s Molly and she’s ever too sweet), and stays a total of twenty minutes. In that short time, Sherlock is polite to her, lets her finish almost all her sentences, and then—most oddly—as she starts to prattle on about the latest forensics from the Grimm case, he stops speaking all together and just nods. As John watches the two of them, he realizes that he hasn’t actually seen Sherlock and Molly in the same room since Sherlock’s return; he knew his flatmate had been to Bart’s at least once or twice, but then he’d started ordering equipment and specimens directly to the flat. His dynamic with Molly is completely off. While John finds it a relief that Sherlock is treating her well, his actual concern is that Sherlock won’t engage in the chat about the science and forensics. He nods. He smiles. He barely responds. John watches his eyes flitting about in thought, searching his mind palace constantly, but John starts to think that maybe Sherlock isn’t finding what he’s looking for. After twenty minutes, Molly too starts to sense that something is wrong, and most sweetly excuses herself.

John thinks back to the crime scene in the penthouse with Maid Maleen: Sherlock had forgotten his own deduction that the body had been moved there close to death. _Forgotten?_

Day Five brings Lestrade. He’s all business and he’s miffed that Sherlock’s taken himself off the case. He arrives with a pile of notes and recordings from the dozens of interviews he’s held with the factory workers (John wishes he’d brought a care package like Molly…). John expects Sherlock to break his promise immediately and dive into the notes, but he doesn’t even look at John as he pushes the filing box away and says, “Do your own job, Lestrade.” The inspector leaves in a huff.

What links the two visits is Sherlock’s agitation following. Their days thus far had been peaceful, with playful ribs at each other and gentle conversation, but after each visit Sherlock paces and flexes his hands how he usually would when he’s bored and without case. John waits for the “BORED!” to resound through the flat, but eventually his flatmate collapses into the couch, curls into a fetal position, and sleeps. SLEEPS! John checks on him a half dozen times on each occasion and is astounded that Sherlock is actually sleeping—though fitfully—without being press ganged to do so.

John begins to catalogue their last four months and finds that besides the visits to a handful of crime scenes, at which Sherlock was uncharacteristically quiet, they’ve been out very little. They’d barely seen Molly and Lestrade, and Sherlock ousted Mrs. Hudson at every chance. And then there was the visit from Mycroft in which Sherlock uttered about four words total. In fact, the only time John had seen Sherlock close to his version of “normal” had been when it was just the two of them. And then there was the immense trouble he was having solving the Grimm case… John couldn’t ignore it any longer—something was up and Sherlock was putting a great effort into hiding it from everybody.

On Day Six, Lestrade comes back with a man in tow. Maleki.

“I’m going into witness protection,” he says as Mrs. Hudson serves him tea. He and Lestrade perch on the couch. “That maniac is still out there. You should get outta dodge, too.”

“No, I’ll be ready when he comes,” John replies. “He’s got a story to finish and frankly, I’ve got unfinished business.”

“You shoulda told me you was working on the case.” Mal shakes his head regretfully, but doesn’t seem all that upset. “Guess you didn’t trust me,” he says with a wry quirk of his lips. “This, then, must be the actual Sherlock Holmes. The man who can solve any mystery.”

Sherlock is sitting in his chair, staring into the distance. He barely acknowledges Mal’s address. His hands are poised on the strings of his violin, but he doesn’t pluck.

“I’m real good at riddles,” Mal continues. “John can tell you. Here, I’ve got a good one for you. Okay, what’s red—”

“Not interested,” Sherlock spits as he rises from his chair and leaves the room. His bedroom door slams.

“Sorry,” John says with grimace.

“Don’t take it personally,” Lestrade says, leaning back on the couch. “He can be like that.”

“Curse of a brilliant mind, that,” says Mal thoughtfully. “He must have many redeeming qualities besides, being that you are so dedicated to him.”

Both John and Lestrade choke on their tea, and Mrs. Hudson (who is tittering about the kitchen) actually giggles. John lists a few of Sherlock’s redeeming qualities in his head, but can’t find a way to express them in a way that actually sounds redeeming.

“Yes,” John starts, “he does manage to redeem himself…in other ways…”

“He’s your lover, then.”

“No!” John blushes and Lestrade actually puts down his tea as if there’s no point in drinking it any longer. “He’s my partner. In business. In…in consulting detective work, obviously. And he’s my flatmate. Just that.”

Mal purses his lips thoughtfully. “I don’t mean to pry, but in the basement while you slept, you often whispered his name. I thought that…I thought that he must be very important to you.”

John nods. When he responds, he’s aware that Sherlock is likely listening. “He is,” he says slowly, “the most important person in my life.”

Mal meets his eyes and John finds they are soft and moist. “Keep him close, then,” he says lowly.

Lestrade’s phone trilling interrupts the pause in conversation.

“Gotta go,” he says. “Your new home is ready.” He turns to John. “If you want to read Mal’s statement, it’s in the notes I tried to pass on. I could really use his help on this one. Do you think…”

“I’m sorry Greg, but I can’t. He’s made his decision, and quite frankly, he needs the rest. He’s not like you and me. He’s either on or he’s off, and this case was weighing too hard on him.”

Greg nods, but still adds, “See you at the next crime scene, then,” as he trots down the stairs.

Mal pauses at the door. “Thanks for saving my life, friend.” And then he’s gone.

Mrs. Hudson wanders out from the kitchen with a dishtowel in her hand. Together, she and John look back towards Sherlock’s shut door. Mrs. Hudson shifts her gaze to John. “I’ll go talk to him,” he says, and heads into the fray.

Sherlock’s bedroom is dim; the curtains are drawn and the mid-morning light bleeds through. John closes the door quietly behind him and takes a moment to observe Sherlock’s long body lying with his back to him. He’s wearing black trousers and that deadly purple shirt, but he’s kicked off his shoes and socks. His figure is still, but his wiggling toes give him away. Still thinking.

With a sigh, John sidles onto the bed and props his back against the headboard. There are no pillows; they’re both in John’s room. Sherlock’s been sleeping in John’s reading chair every night.

“What was it,” he asks the silence, “that bothered you so much about Mal?”

Sherlock rolls onto his back and looks up at John. His eyes are impossibly bright, but the creases on his forehead give away his anxiety. John can read it all over Sherlock’s tense body, and he can only think of one or two incidences before Sherlock’s time away when his friend had expressed his sort of agitation. What was doing it now?

“You said,” Sherlock whispered, “that I am the most important person in your life.”

John grins. “Do you have any evidence to the contrary?”

Sherlock’s smile is small, but John is satisfied that it’s real.

“John, it’s not Mal directly that bothers me. Many things occurred…while I was away. I have been careful with how much I’ve told you for both your protection and mine. One thing…one thing has left a lasting impression. I will tell you, but I can’t yet.”

John nods. He nods and pushes all his worries aside—again—because he has to trust that Sherlock _will_ tell him. He has to, or else their friendship is already broken. He’s hurt though. His chest is tight and his eyes burn because you’d think they’d be done with secrets by now. But Sherlock still keeps so much: his injuries, what exactly he did while he was away, and now, this strange aversion to anyone but John. A small, small part of John is pleased that whatever was pushing Sherlock away from other people, was still drawing the two of them closer. Mostly he just wanted his friend whole again.

“John? In your medical opinion, do you find that physical contact facilitates the rapidity of the healing process?”

John is blindsided. “I’m sorry?”

“Mrs. Hudson said that you ‘won’t heal from tea and biscuits alone.’ I respect that her bedside manner is better experienced than mine, and I’ve read that physical contact with another person causes the release of endorphins that aid in the production of both antibodies and serotonin, suggesting that a person can improve both physical and emotional conditions through the application of touch.”

John is laughing gently. “Yes, in my medical opinion, all that is true. What are you suggesting?”

“A hug, I think?”

John laughs loudly this time, and scoots down the bed to lie beside Sherlock, who holds out his arms for John. Their bodies fit together easily: John’s head on Sherlock’s shoulder, Sherlock’s arms wrapped around John’s torso and his cheek resting in John’s clean hair. John relaxes against his friend’s body, and is surprised to find this position completely natural—any awkwardness he was expecting never comes. Sherlock’s body is cool against John, who is always warm, and when Sherlock pulls him closer, John thinks he must like the heat. Sherlock is always cold. For quite some time neither says anything. John soaks up his smell and touch; he ignores the intimate thoughts that cross his mind because he wouldn’t want this to end for anything.

“Is it helping?” Sherlock whispers.

“I think so.”

“How long is it appropriate to continue?”

“However long we each like.”

Sherlock’s arms tighten slightly around him, and John responds with a squeeze.

As John relaxes and drifts towards sleep, he thinks that it’s odd to be the one being held, not the other way. He likes it—he likes it from Sherlock—but he’s so used to holding someone else. He wants to hold Sherlock back, as if he could protect him from the demons that followed him home all those months ago. John gets his wish. Shortly, they both fall asleep, and when John wakes sometime in the late afternoon, he’s lying on his side with Sherlock’s face nuzzled deeply in the crevice of his shoulder. His arms are draped over the tight body, and Sherlock’s own hands rest on John’s chest. John looks down at Sherlock’s sleeping face and knows that he’d hold Sherlock every night just to give him five minutes of this kind of rest. His breathing is slow and even, his eyes move under their lids in REM sleep, but it’s a languid movement—good dreams, John hopes. Every few minutes, Sherlock’s fingers twitch against his chest, and when, driven by sentiment, John leans down and kisses the top of his head, Sherlock lets out a long sigh. He hears Sherlock’s earlier words: “ _a person can improve both physical and emotional conditions through the application of touch._ ” Maybe Sherlock needs this just as much.

That afternoon ushers in John’s first favourite part of ‘waiting on John’: sleeping together. Without ever discussing it, they end each day in one of their beds, tangled close to one another. John knows that Sherlock comes and goes throughout the night, but he figures his mad scientist must be tracking his sleep cycles, because he’s always curled up against John in the morning.

Days Seven through Fourteen hustle in a new era of Sherlock and John’s friendship. As Sherlock notes, their closeness as friends seems to increase by a 1:1 ratio in direct relation to their physical closeness. John is a little disturbed that Sherlock is only now learning this rather important detail of human relation.

One morning Sherlock comes up behind John in the kitchen and slides his hands around John’s stomach in a hug from behind, his chin resting on John’s shoulder. The feeling of Sherlock’s slender hands on his body sends a warm rush through John and instantly he is half-hard. He pushes himself against the kitchen counter to hide it and says, “Sherlock you need to not do that.” Sherlock pulls his body completely away from John’s instantly.

“I’m sorry John, I—”

John knows Sherlock has no idea what he did wrong. “No, it’s fine. Really it’s fine. It was very nice actually. But you have to understand that while physical contact between friends is okay, there are things mates do and don’t do.” John half turns so he can see Sherlock, whose face is closed and perplexed.

“I’m not good at friends, but I’m not a total simpleton when it comes to relationships.” Sherlock wanders into the sitting room to sit at his laptop. He gives John a pointed look. “And I know that mates don’t wash each other’s hair or share a bed.”

A few days later, while Sherlock is rinsing John’s hair in the most sensuous way one can rinse hair (John has a feeling that Sherlock is playing it up now), Sherlock’s hands still on his head and rest at the base of his skull. John opens his eyelids and finds Sherlock’s own beautiful eyes boring down on him. John briefly tries to place the colour, but Sherlock’s eyes are like liquid—like a deep blue lagoon ever shifting under moonlight. “John.” Sherlock’s baritone goes straight to John’s groin, and just like that he’s getting hard. Sherlock can’t miss it, not this time, plus the dilated pupils and the way his head is being cradled, surely Sherlock can feel that his heart is fluttering like a hummingbird. Sherlock steps forward into John’s body, pressing his bare chest against John’s, and his groin against John’s stomach, slipping his pajama clad thigh between John’s legs to press against his erection. John shudders; Sherlock is rock hard against his stomach.

Sherlock leans down and whispers into John’s ear: “You’ve said you’re not gay before, but if you’ve changed your mind, I’d like to know. Otherwise, we need to back this up and go back to being just mates. Think on it.” He slowly peels himself away from John, and John’s aching body arches forward to retain the contact, but Sherlock’s hands slide from behind his head to press on his chest. “Think, John.” Then he steps out of the shower and leaves.

John stands in the spray and breathes. It was, thus far, the hottest moment of his sexual life. His whole body is awash with pins and needles because all the blood has gone to his cock. He wonders how he could convincingly phrase to Sherlock that he _will_ think on it, but could Sherlock please come and wack him off first because his hands are screwed and he hasn’t had a release in nearly ten days. _Please_. But it wouldn’t stop there, he knows. John wants Sherlock. All of him. He wants him naked and splayed out beneath him and…John flips the water to ice cold and shifts his thoughts to cadavers and eyeballs in the microwave. John needs to think this through; he needs to be sure before he takes another step with this, because Sherlock only functions in two modes: all or nothing.

On Day Fifteen, Mrs. Hudson comes bustling up the stairs as Sherlock is preparing John a second cup of tea and John is reading the papers at the table.

“Boys! There was a man at the door in a suit. He asked me to give you this,” she says, holding out a small, brown-paper-wrapped box with Sherlock’s name on it. Sherlock turns and takes the box.

John immediately tenses and a tingle runs up his spine. _King Grimm?_

“Oh, do be worried, John,” Sherlock says, reading his mind as he turns the box over in his hands. “This is certainly a package from an enemy. Oh yes. Tightly wrapped, pin-sharp edges, hand delivered, and that script—good pen and written with care.” The tiny quirk of his bottom lip gives him away.

“It’s from Mycroft, isn’t it,” John says flatly. Sherlock just grins and sits at the table to open it. Mrs. Hudson, bless her, picks up where Sherlock has abandoned the tea.

“Your brother should have dropped off that package himself,” she muses as she works. “He doesn’t visit enough and goodness knows he works too hard.”

Sherlock tears off the paper and reveals a pristine black case with silver trim. He pops the top open and turns it toward John. Inside there are two thick rings: black, matte finish, probably titanium.

“Handsome,” Mrs. Hudson comments as she puts two mugs on the table.

“John,” Sherlock starts, and by his tone John suspects he isn’t going to like what’s next. “I asked Mycroft for a favour, and I want you to consider it before dismissing it.” He takes a ring out and rolls it in his fingers. “These rings are embedded with GPS satellite tags connected to a server that I will show you how to access.” John opens his mouth to protest, but Sherlock cuts him off. “This is not a permanent suggestion. We will have to leave the flat soon, and King Grimm will grab one of us—probably you—at his earliest opportunity. I suggest we take this precaution until we catch King Grimm.”

John studies his friend across the table. He hears the subtext: _I couldn’t find you…I failed._ If Sherlock is considering this option (and asking Mycroft for assistance), John’s kidnapping must have truly shaken him.

“Mrs. Hudson, could you give us a moment,” John says, and neither he nor Sherlock hear her “Of course, dears,” as she slips down the stairs. John sighs long and deep. He lets his companion wait while he gathers his thoughts, because for John this is bigger than King Grimm. Finally, he gets the words in the right order: “Last fall you threw yourself off a building and disappeared for six months. Where was your brother’s GPS ring then?”

“John—”

“No, you don’t get to put a leash on me like I’m your pet when you made me think you were dead! And so what if you wear one, too. What’s to stop you from taking it off and walking away aga—”

“I won’t!” He is breathing hard. “I know better now. I won’t leave you again.” Sherlock stands and comes around the table to sit beside John. He holds the ring between them as he speaks: “I know I haven’t been open with you about my time away, but know this, I learned that you are essential to me. I won’t leave you behind again. And I won’t have you taken away.” He slips the black ring onto his own hand, and moves as if he is about to grab John’s hands, but upon finding them wrapped in gauze, moves up and rests the back of his hand on John’s cheek. The cold ring is sharp on John’s skin, and he closes his eyes briefly as he takes in Sherlock’s touch. “This is my promise. Now please, make me one, too.”

John knew from the moment he saw the rings that he’d submit to it, but hearing this from Sherlock fixes something small inside him and brings him one inch closer to his friend. Or maybe more-than-friend, because if Sherlock is honest about never again leaving John behind, then John may be up for the next adventure Sherlock appears to be offering.

He nods. Sherlock retrieves the second ring from the box, and because he never misses the details, pulls a black chain from his dressing gown pocket and strings the ring onto it. “I’ll heal,” John says, as Sherlock fastens the chain around his neck, and neither knows if he means his hands or his heart.

The rings are like a silent agreement that it’s time to get back to business. That day Sherlock contacts Lestrade and requests the case file notes he’d turned away before. Twenty-four hours later Sherlock has read and re-read all the workers’ statements, and Maleki’s, and formed some version of a profile of King Grimm.

Meanwhile, John peels the gauze off his hands for the last time. The skin on his palms is tight like it’s been shrunk in the wash, but the wounds have all bonded tightly and the pain has wound down to an annoying ache. His palms will scar; John’s a soldier and he doesn’t care. He spends the afternoon cleaning his gun. Stretching the unused muscles aches at first, but the more he uses them, the better it gets.

“My hands are weak,” he tells Sherlock. “I need a few days of using them before I’ll be a steady shot.”

Sherlock nods. “Hopefully it won’t come to that. A few more days then.”

So John uses his hands in every way he can. He’s lucky that the damage was all epidural, and all his muscles need is a little re-awakening. He grimaces when he thinks that in the long-run his hands will heal completely while Sherlock’s will almost always ache in the cold.

John uses his hands making tea and cooking simple meals. He shuffles cards to really work them. He folds laundry. And he touches Sherlock whenever the impulse grabs him, which is a lot.

John’s made his decision.

On Day Twenty-One, John walks into the sitting room to find Sherlock shouldering on his long coat.

“I’m out of rosin,” he says. “It’s essential. I’m going out.”

John is subdued as he goes to stand at the top of the stairs, but inside his heart is beating wildly. Sherlock loops his scarf around his neck and joins John at the landing.

Sherlock smiles, but it’s a sad smile. “So, I’m going to be kidnapped.”

“I believe so.”

“His vendetta is against you now, John. This is a man with an ego and a lot of confidence.”

“But it’s how the story goes. I passed the first two trials, which means we’re on to the final part of the story. Rumpelstiltskin has to collect his bounty in payment for his assistance in the dungeon, and since I don’t have a first-born child, it’s going to be you.”

“You still think that’s why Mal visited?”

“I still hope I’m wrong about him, but his questions about you were too pointed. I don’t know who to trust anymore. This scares the crap out of me more than anything I saw in Afghanistan or since.”

“We are taking precautions.” Sherlock slides his bare hand around John’s neck, the cool ring pressing against his skin.

“And what if he just kidnaps and kills you, Sherlock? What if he throws the game away? What if I can’t outsmart King Grimm when I face him?”

“John.” The tone in his voice causes John to meet his eyes. “I trust you.”

There’s a tightness in John’s chest and a burning sensation in his eyes. He steps forward, lifts onto this toes, and presses his lips to Sherlock’s. His mouth is hot and tastes of tea. John feels Sherlock’s hand tighten around his neck and another slip around his waist, pulling him close against Sherlock’s hard body. So overwhelmed he’s forgotten about his own hands, John finds they are gripping Sherlock’s arms tight enough to leave bruises. But who cares, because Sherlock’s lips are slipping against his rhythmically, as if the man is anatomizing every crease of his mouth. Sherlock’s tongue caresses his bottom lip and John moans aloud. Sherlock pulls away.

“It was a good sound, Sherlock. Like with the washing.”

Sherlock grins. “So you’ve changed your mind, then?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Sherlock dips his head again and John meets his lips softly this time. John is amazed by how full and supple Sherlock’s lips are, and he calls bullshit that Sherlock is a virgin because no virgin kisses like this. John would trade ever touching a pair of breasts again if it meant kissing these lips every night. But then Sherlock’s body is pulling away, the distance between them is increasing, and his lips are the last to break contact before he trots down the stairs to the first landing. He pauses at the corner, his face flushed and his breathing rapid.

“The shop is just down the street. I’ll be back in but a moment.” He winks and disappears around the corner.

But he’s not back in a moment, as John knew would be the case.

After three hours with no response to texts or calls, John logs on to the GPS server and shoves his gun into his belt.


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My deep apologies to those of you who have waited so patiently for this chapter! My real life got in the way for awhile, but I'm back and writing again. I am so excited to bring you this final chapter in the Matters of Flax and Straw story. What started as a simple prompt from the Let's Write Sherlock Challenge Two has turned into something much bigger. I want to say a huge thank you to all those who have left kudos and comments. Your encouragement and feedback is greatly appreciated! 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy!

* * *

London is grey as John’s cab speeds into the industrial district. John feels grey too, though in actuality he’s flushed. He glances down at his phone, where Mycroft’s server is tracking Sherlock’s location. He suspects that by activating the server, he’s also activated Mycroft’s interest in his brother’s location. No doubt he’s moving in the same direction as John. Lestrade, too. John texted. His first instinct was to call the Yard in blazing and forceful, but he requested a different sort of back up after the server showed him where Sherlock was being held.

_Lestrade, SH nabbed by Grimm. Location: burnt warehouse. Trap. Send back up but undercover. –JW_

King Grimm wanted to make it easy for John to find Sherlock, and John had expected this to be the case. In the fairy tale, Rumpelstiltskin steals the first born but then comes directly to the queen to bargain. This part of the game is about negotiation.

Lestrade tried to slow John down. Coordinate with his team. Wear a wire. Let the Yard handle it without John. But John ignored his texts and calls, continuing on by cab to the burnt warehouse.

The thick central beams of the warehouse had survived the raging fire, though they are blackened with soot and scarred from the heat. The roof had collapsed on one side and the weight of the falling lumber had blown right through the floor into the basement. The building’s shell is dark against the dull skyline, and the burnt ash stench permeates John’s lungs and nostrils as he steps from the cab and approaches the abandoned space. Yellow police tape surrounds the building, haphazardly wrapped around blackened light standards and stop signs. The parking lot is empty but for a single cargo van.

John advances on the warehouse quietly, pausing at the bay door farthest from the roof collapse. He hopes like hell that King Grimm isn’t holding Sherlock in the basement; he never wants to see that wretched dungeon again. As he steps through the bay door, he notices several grey vehicles sliding into the parking lot of a nearby warehouse—far away but still in sight. Lestrade or Mycroft then. John knows he should wait, but instead he strides forward onto the game board and into the final part of his story.

He sees Sherlock and King Grimm immediately. Sherlock is sitting on a chair near the end of the warehouse, his hands bound behind him—the rough rope travels under the seat of the chair to also bind his ankles. Immobile, then. He’s conscious, but as John approaches, Sherlock looks up to reveal a swollen, bloodshot left eye. So he’d taken a blown to the face. _You stupid git, why did you have to fight back? You knew it would end here._ Sherlock’s mouth is gagged by a thick length of fabric.

King Grimm, dressed in jeans and a black jumper, squats a few feet behind Sherlock. The fillet knife dangles from his clasped hands. His face is relaxed and a small smile plays on his lips.

“Welcome back, John.” The voice comes from several feet to John’s right. He doesn’t even look over. He just laughs and shakes his head. The voice is soft, friendly, and has hints of a Scottish accent.

“Obvious, right Sherlock,” John says. Sherlock keeps his gaze steady on John. “He put on a damned good show, though.” John glances to his right where Mal is leaning against the warped basement door. “You had to play the starring role, then?”

Mal smiles, and even now, there’s very little that’s threatening about him. His goon—the presumed King Grimm twiddling the fillet knife—is much scarier. Mal’s too big clothes and straggly hair make him appear more like a homeless man looking for change.

“Of course. I like being right in the action of my little stories. Playing the King was boring; but Rumpelstiltskin, there’s a challenge. Did a pretty good job, too, you think? Nearly had you on my side.”

“Nearly.” John plays aloof, but Mal’s smile says it all: John lost that round. On that last day in the basement, beaten physically and emotionally, John had trusted Mal, believed he was a victim too, and then risked himself and Sherlock to get Mal out of that basement. “You really committed to the role. That trench foot looked pretty authentic to my eye.”

“Oh yes, terrible that. Didn’t want to miss a moment. Healing nicely, thanks for asking. I lied to you though. I only did two weeks in the basement before you joined me.”

“No worries, mate,” John sneers. “What’s a white lie between cellmates?”

Mal walks slowly down the length of the warehouse, and with his medical background, John can tell from Mal’s gait that his feet are still sore. John starts cataloguing, like Sherlock probably already has, all the weaknesses in his enemy, and the exits in the warehouse, and his available weapons.

“So,” John says slowly, as Mal limps closer to the quiet goon and bound Sherlock. “I came. You made your move and I countered. Your turn.”

Mal steps up to Sherlock, and brushes his fingers along Sherlock’s jaw. John feels a tightness in his stomach that is signalling him to violence, but he keeps himself from land-marking his gun. He needs to keep that move hidden unless absolutely necessary. _Stop touching what’s mine._

“My turn. Well, the next part of the story is when you both die.” Mal sighs dramatically. “It’s a pity. The girls were fun—too many tears for my taste—but you two have been my golden egg. Feisty, resourceful, and that bit with the rescue and the fire was my favourite part. You sure know how to tell a story.”

“Hold on,” John says. “Don’t we make a deal now? Don’t I get to guess your name?”

“You already know my name. Maleki MacBrennan.”

“That’s your real name?”

“Doesn’t much matter if you know it or not. You’re going to die.”

"Seems sort of a boring way to end all this, doesn’t it?” John shifts his weight and watches the quiet goon, who has stood from his squat and is hovering behind Sherlock. “You went through a lot of trouble to play out the Rumpelstiltskin story, so why just cut it off at the best part with a quick murder?”

"Double murder,” Mal corrects as he squeezes Sherlock’s shoulder. “Sherlock first, as he should have before: a short drop and a quick stop.” Before John can respond, the goon grabs the back of Sherlock’s chair, tips it back, and drags him the few meters backwards to where the floorboards end at a pit of warped, splintered wood bird-nested in the basement. John’s heart stops. A brief image of Sherlock’s body splayed out in the rubble, pierced and bleeding, flashes through his mind. He can’t watch Sherlock fall again. The goon balances Sherlock’s chair on its back legs, rocking it back and forth. Sherlock’s wide eyes meet John’s—he’s terrified—and John would try to glean some hint from his friend— _What do I do next? How do I out-play him?—_ but the hot rush of rage that’s moving through John’s body overtakes any sense of logic and calmness he has left. He draws his gun from his belt and points it at Mal, advancing.

“No. No! I’m not done yet.” John’s body is shaking but he knows his aim is true. He closes the distance slowly. “Set him free. This is between me and you.”

Mal shakes his head. “No it’s not. It’s always been about all three of us. You’re each just a matter of flax and straw, did you know?” John raises an eyebrow in question; he has to keep Mal talking; he has to get closer. “You’re benign. Just simple grains until I come along and add some spark. What’s Sherlock Holmes without a serial killer? Just a wispy man drying out in the sun while he waits for a case; straw in a field, just straw in a field. And Doctor John Watson is even sadder. A flaxen man, bland and boring, living in the shadow of his brilliant friend. He’ll never grow as tall or be as golden. See, you two need me: I’m the spark that starts the fire; I’m the hands that spin grain into gold.” Mal reaches out and twists his fingers into Sherlock’s curls, and if there wasn’t a chance that the goon would drop his friend, John would have shot him right then. “Your season’s over now though,” Mal continues lowly, his eyes on Sherlock’s face.

Three events happen in tandem: a shot rings out; both the goon and Mal drop; and, John lunges forward, his arm outstretched as Sherlock’s chair tips backwards.

John’s fingers wrap around the bottom rung of the chair and John’s tunnel vision is so tight he reacts on instinct alone, twisting his wrist until the chair pivots on a single leg and falls sideways. Even through the gag, Sherlock cries out as his shoulder collides with the floor. The floor! John’s on the floor, too! He firms his grip on the rung and pulls Sherlock and the chair away from the edge of the pit. Scrambling to his knees, John hovers his entire body over Sherlock’s as he looks up.

“Police!” There are plain-clothed officers pouring into the space from three sides, each armed. John looks to Mal, who’s on his stomach by the edge of the pit. His eyes flick to the goon, now bleeding-out on the floorboards. _Who authorized that shot,_ John thinks in a rage.

His gun is a few feet away on the floor. He’d dropped it when he lunged for Sherlock. Mal eyes the gun.

"Don’t, Mal,” John warns.

Mal stumbles to his feet, and there are yells as a dozen officers warn him to back down, just give up, it’s over. Mal’s face is twisted in rage. He backs towards the pit, grabbing at his own hair and letting out a harsh cry of frustration that echoes off the skeleton structure. “Police, John?!” he screams. “What a terrible ending! Why couldn’t you just play with me like I wanted!” He slams his foot into the floor like a spoiled child, and the floorboard cracks and splits in an instant. Later, John would calculate that he probably could have lunged forward and grabbed Mal, but as he watches Mal lose his balance and windmill his arms before falling backward into the pit, all John thinks is: _Fitting end, Rumpelstiltskin._

Officers move around them, and John’s sure there are instructions being yelled and paramedics being sent for, but for him it all goes quiet. He tends to Sherlock, removing the gag first and then leaning over him to untie the bonds. Wrists then feet. Sherlock unfolds from the chair, and John scoops his arm under Sherlock’s torso, being careful of the shoulder he landed on, to help Sherlock shift to sit on the floor. His fingers go to Sherlock’s face, and lightly graze his bruised cheekbone. “You good?” John whispers.

“Yes. That was good.”

Lestrade runs up and drops beside the two men. “Anybody hurt?” John and Sherlock each shake their heads.

“Did you authorize that shot?” John says through gritted teeth. He almost didn’t catch Sherlock. He almost had to watch him fall again. His hands are shaking, and he drops them to Sherlock’s knees and grips tightly.

“No,” Lestrade grumbles. “Donovan took it.” He doesn’t say any more, but his face is strained as he rises and leaves to tend to other things.

Sherlock and John support each other as they climb to their feet. There’s a rush of officers and rescue workers and paramedics heading for the pit, but nobody stops the two men as they slowly walk side-by-side out of the building. De-brief later. Lestrade knows where to find them.

In the parking lot, a black car and a man with an umbrella wait. John rolls his eyes.

“Can I offer you gentlemen a ride?” Mycroft asks with his usual strained smile.

John is expecting a lecture or at least a few tight, sarcastic comments as they drive through London in the late afternoon light. But both the Holmes boys are uncharacteristically quiet.

“Would you like your GPS rings back now or should I have them polished first,” Sherlock finally asks as they approach Baker Street.

“Whenever you please,” Mycroft answers. “Unless you require further use of them?”

“Thank you for your patience with this, John,” Sherlock says, slipping the sleek black ring off his finger and into his palm. He holds his palm out for John to deposit his own ring.

John’s hand touches the solid object strung around his neck. It’s tucked away beneath his clothes, and even so, it’s cool and heavy; a tangible promise he can feel on his skin.

“Actually, I’ll keep mine for a while if it makes no difference to you, Mycroft.”

“Very little,” he says coolly, but he does raise an eyebrow. “Afraid you’ll get snatched again?”

John shrugs. “You’re watching Sherlock. Might be nice to know someone is watching me.” He can feel Sherlock’s curious gaze on him, then, his in peripheral, he sees Sherlock close his fingers around the ring in his palm and slide it onto his other hand. He sits back; his hands settle in his lap. John mostly keeps his smile under wraps, and the car stops at the curb before 221B.

"Sherlock,” Mycroft says softly before the boys can slide out. “What’s your relationship with a Sergeant Sally Donovan at Scotland Yard?”

“She dislikes me.”

“Evidently.”

John leans forward. “Did you have people in that building also?”

“I did,” Mycroft answers.

“People who may know the circumstances of that shot?”

“I will have a copy of the report forwarded.”

John nods a silent thank you and slips out of the vehicle. Sherlock doesn’t follow immediately, and John can hear a whispered exchange between the brothers before Sherlock emerges with a tight-set jaw. John follows his friend into their flat—up the stairs and into the sitting room—and as they shed their coats, John’s head is cycling through several thoughts: the dramatic close to the Grimm case and hopefully the end to the fairytale serial murders; the shot that Donovan took without authorization and why; the silence between Sherlock and Mycroft; the secret Sherlock has promised to tell him eventually; and, the kiss on the stairs shared just this morning and yet so long ago. John doesn’t have Sherlock’s ability to multi-task/multi-think, so he decides to choose one problem and deal with it. He’s weighing his options carefully when Sherlock decides for him.

A cool hand rests lightly on his hip. He can feel Sherlock close to his back. “John. I want you.” Sherlock’s voice is low and husky. The blood in John’s body starts to rearrange itself, most of it heading south, causing him to feel lightheaded and tingly all over. He takes deep breaths to steady himself, but he is both more horny and more terrified than he can remember feeling ever.

“Slow, Sherlock. I…I’ve never been with a man.”

The hand applies a light pressure to John’s hip, and he turns to face his friend. Sherlock’s pupils are dilated and his lips swollen and red. He looks down at John with a small smile that John might have found patronizing under different circumstances, but at the moment all he can do is stare at Sherlock’s beautiful lips.

“Your sexuality is your own, John. Despite the social norms you’ve been raised with, sex between two people it much simpler than society leads you to believe. It comes to this: do you find me attractive?” John blushes, but nods. Sherlock’s other hand grips John’s hip and he slowly pulls him so they are chest to chest. John breathes in the familiar smell of Sherlock. “Good,” Sherlock continues in a low voice. “Do you want to be with me, right now?” John nods a little more confidently this time. He can feel rather than hear Sherlock laugh gently. “Very good.” Sherlock’s hand comes up to cup John’s face, tilting it up, and as he speaks he brushes his lips against John’s. “May I have you, John?”

“Yes,” John whispers, and then their mouths slide together. Sherlock’s lips are full and soft, pressing against John’s insistently. John shifts his hips up against Sherlock’s, his fully hard erection pushing into Sherlock’s thigh. He feels Sherlock respond against him immediately, his own cock hard and pulsing against John. And John has a moment of revelation about being with a man: he already knows exactly what’s going to feel good to Sherlock; he can skip the usual tentativeness he normally uses with a new partner because he already knows that Sherlock’s body is strong, and that Sherlock likes his hair and neck touched, and John’s already an expert in masturbation, so it won’t be a far step to make Sherlock feel amazing. A rush of adrenaline and confidence surges through him as he realizes this and his hands come up to grip Sherlock’s shirt. He pulls the starchy dress shirt from the trousers and slips his hands under to Sherlock’s cool lower back. Sherlock trembles against his touch. They move against each other. They grind against each other. Sherlock’s breath is hot on John’s mouth, and he can’t help but nip at Sherlock’s lower lip. Then Sherlock is pushing him back until he hits the closed door to the flat, and he steps back enough to work at John’s belt and buttons.

“Oh hell,” John breathes as he watches Sherlock’s long fingers snap open his belt buckle, and then buttons, and zipper. Sherlock pushes John’s trousers to the floor and pauses.

He leans close to John’s ear. “I’m going to take you in my mouth now.” Then he slides to his knees and John can barely breathe at the sight of it.

“Fuck Sherlock, there is no way you’re a virgin.” _He’s so forward and confident. No virgin here._

“Strictly speaking, I am,” Sherlock answers with a smile, looking up at John from his knees. “I’ve never been with a woman. I’ve never penetrated a man. But as you’re about to discover, I’ve given a fair number of blow jobs.”

He nuzzles John’s erection through his pants, mouthing it gently. Then, he slides the pants down to John’s ankles, and John barely has time to lift one foot from his puddled pants and trousers before Sherlock’s hot mouth envelopes his quivering cock.

“Gah!” John cries, as his hands scramble for anything that would steady him (the door knob and the door frame) and his knees tremble. Sherlock takes it slow. He presses his tongue against the underside of John’s cock as he slowly draws back. At the tip, he pushes John’s foreskin back with his lips and gently teases the sensitive glans beneath. John moans loudly at the sensation and he can feel Sherlock smile around his cock. _He knows it’s a good noise._ Sherlock works on John, his lips firm around him, back and forward, drawing wave after wave of pleasure from a rather vocal John. Sherlock’s hand comes up to grip John at the base, and he squeezes gently, letting the blood build up for a moment before releasing John to another cascade of prolonged pleasure. John’s hands flex at his steady points, and he wants to thrust into Sherlock’s mouth, but he’s desperate to keep still and let Sherlock continue his teasing ministrations. Sherlock’s as good with his mouth as he is with his hands.

"Oh Sherlock,” he breathes, as Sherlock licks up his underside and then takes him into his mouth again, pressing his glans onto the roof of his mouth. At hearing his name, Sherlock pauses, his hand leaving John, and John barely has the wherewithal to realize that Sherlock has released himself from his own trousers and pants, pushing them down to around his knees, and taken himself in hand. Then Sherlock’s mouth his around him again, most insistent this time, and John can feel Sherlock’s body trembling as he strokes himself and sucks John at the same time. John’s hands weave into Sherlock’s curls, pressing him forward gently but still allowing him all the control. The pressure builds at the base of his cock, and John cries out loudly, “Yes, please, Sherlock! Oh, I’m there, I’m—” And instead of pulling off, Sherlock buries his face into the soft hair on John’s abdomen, taking John has deep as he can into his throat, and he swallows. It pushes John over the edge, and he cries out as he comes harder than he has in a long time. The intense pleasure ripples through his body and he relaxes his grip on Sherlock’s curls as he tries to catch his breath.

Sherlock slides off of John’s cock, lapping it clean as he does, and rests his forehead on John’s lower stomach as he quickens the pace of his own strokes. His other hand grips John’s calf, and John strokes through his curls as Sherlock quickly brings himself to climax, shuddering in his shoulders, letting out a held breath, and spurting into his own hand.

For a moment, they both remain still, just breathing. John looks down at Sherlock’s bowed head, still pressed against his stomach, and he suddenly feels sad. ‘A fair number of blow jobs,’ he’d said, and John realizes that Sherlock’s confidence at this was due to practice. At specifically this. John wonders how many blow jobs Sherlock had given that hadn’t ended in reciprocation. Did Sherlock always finish himself at his own hand?

_We’ve done this backwards,_ he thinks, and then he drops to his knees, enveloping Sherlock with his arms and holding him close. He can feel Sherlock’s hesitation before his arms come around to hold him too. “You are amazing,” he whispers into Sherlock’s ear. He draws back and gently kisses Sherlock’s swollen lips. “Come on. Meet me in your bedroom.”

They struggle to stand, tangled in their trousers, but after a moment, they’re up and John follows Sherlock down the hall. John ducks into the loo, and Sherlock shoots him a confused look as he pauses at the bedroom door. John loves the sight of Sherlock in just a dress shirt, crumpled at the bottom, barely covering his tight ass. John comes out of the loo with warm, wet wash cloth. He meets Sherlock at the door to his bedroom, and takes his hand first to clean off the sticky ejaculate. John hesitates for just a moment before taking Sherlock’s soft cock and gently cleaning it also. John is pleased by the feeling of Sherlock in his hand, and he gets a tingle up his back as he realizes he wants Sherlock hard again. He wants to make him moan and wriggle. Mostly though, he wants to make Sherlock feel good.

He looks up at Sherlock’s face and finds it open and smiling. This is the part Sherlock has always missed from his sexual life, John is sure: tenderness. Dropping the cloth on the night stand, John guides Sherlock to the bed and then reaches to unbutton his shirt and push it off his shoulders. When he’s done with Sherlock’s, he sheds his own. They stand silent before one another, naked and for the moment, unsure.

John reaches a hand up and strokes Sherlock’s jaw, careful to avoid the purple bruise spreading across his cheek. His friend is so beautiful, and John is in awe that he’s about to consume this body in front of him. That the untouchable Sherlock Holmes has let him get this close.

“John, I…” he trails off, obviously unsure what to say, but John has a feeling.

“I know. You’re new to this part.” Sherlock nods and John smiles warmly. “This is the part I’m good at, Sherlock. I’ll guide you.” John climbs onto the bed, pulling Sherlock by the hand with him. He settles Sherlock on his side and lies close beside him. As he speaks, he drags his finger tips up Sherlock’s side gently. “I want to learn your body, every part of it.” He grips Sherlock’s chin and looks into his wide eyes. “This is the best part of sex. Being intimate—being sensual—with another person is a gift. May I have you, Sherlock?”

At Sherlock’s tentative nod, John presses his whole body against Sherlock’s and meets his lips. They kiss languidly for a long while before John lets his hands wander. He runs his callused hands up Sherlock’s torso, counting his ribs, then down his arms, gripping his slender but solid muscles. He breaks their kiss and bends to place small kisses across Sherlock’s collar bones, and he feels Sherlock’s sharp intake of breath when he nips lightly at his shoulder. He runs his hands over Sherlock’s upper back, and up his neck to thread through his hair. He can feel Sherlock tense and relax under his touch, and after awhile, Sherlock’s hands find John’s body, and, slowly at first, they too start to explore the contours. John nearly purrs as Sherlock runs his strong hands down his back, pressing into the sore muscles there and sending shivers down his spine. John hisses out a quiet “yesss” when Sherlock’s hands slide over his bum and grip his upper thighs. A mind like Sherlock’s reads cues quickly, and within minutes Sherlock has pinpointed several of John’s erogenous areas: his bum, his thighs, his neck.

Curious, John slips his thigh over Sherlock’s hips and rolls Sherlock onto his back. He smiles sweetly, because he’s pretty sure this part will be new for Sherlock, before leaning down and sucking on a nipple. “Ah-ah!” Sherlock lets out (the first really audible reaction he’s had), and his hands fly up to grip John’s thighs. John is pleased, and he continues to flick his tongue over the hard nipple as Sherlock keens and wriggles beneath him. He feels Sherlock’s cock grow large and hard again against his inner thigh, and much to his surprise, John also finds his groin stirring in excitement.

“Damn,” he breathes into Sherlock’s chest. “My refractory time isn’t usually that good.”

“Maybe you just needed the right partner,” Sherlock gasps between long breaths.

“Are you saying I’ve been in denial?”

Sherlock places a finger under John’s chin and draws him up for a sultry kiss. “I’m saying you’ve made me wait too long for this.”

Sherlock rolls them so he’s on top of John, and John wraps his leg around Sherlock’s, pressing their hard cocks together. His whole body is alive. Every place that Sherlock’s body touches his is electric. Their lips slide together like it’s a dance they’ve practiced for years, and John feels satisfied that for this moment as least, he knows that his Sherlock is safe, and maybe, is happy.

“I had no idea how good this would be,” John whispers against his lips, wondering if he should have tried men earlier or if the ecstasy in his body is exclusively for Sherlock.

“Better than I expected,” Sherlock whispers back, and as he arches into John’s hands sliding up his back, John’s sure he doesn’t just mean the sex, but also the languid, sensual experience of being with another person. For John’s part, he can’t remember a time he enjoyed a body this much. The beautiful man on top of him moans softly as John cups his bum cheeks and massages; Sherlock buries his head into the crook of John’s neck and breathes. “It’s almost too much.”

John slides his hands all the way up Sherlock’s long body to rest on the backs of his shoulders. He places a soft kiss on the top of his head. “You’re overwhelmed. Let’s go back to something you know.” John shouldn’t have been surprised (though he is) when Sherlock immediately starts to shimmy down his body toward John’s hard cock. “Ah! No, no, no!” John laughs as he scoops his hands into Sherlock’s armpits and draws him back up to face level. He can see the _Did I do something wrong?_ in Sherlock’s wide eyes, and he’s quick to quell the insecurity with a light kiss. “What I really meant to say is, let’s put this part aside for awhile and get back to basics. Roll onto your side.”

John isn’t used to being the dominant, more experienced side of their partnership, and he’s surprised when Sherlock doesn’t argue but just rolls over. It seems that Sherlock is willing to defer to John on matters of sex, but this also puts a huge amount of responsibility in John’s hands.

John sidles up behind Sherlock so he’s the big spoon. His aching cock presses into Sherlock’s lower back, but John ignores it. He tangles his fingers in the dark hair at the base of Sherlock’s penis.

“Sherlock, has anybody ever given _you_ a blow job? Or a hand job, even?”

He can feel Sherlock’s body tense against his, but he answers: “Not with success.”

That makes sense. John figured that Sherlock would have a hard time shutting off his brain long enough to just enjoy being pleasured, especially if it was someone he didn’t know very well—Sherlock would be too busy observing the other person and making deductions about them to climax. They friendship is way past that stage though, John is certain. And he knows how to shut Sherlock’s brain off: take away the mystery and lay it all bare.

John grips Sherlock’s cock and begins to pump it slowly.

“Sherlock,” he growls, “I want you to turn that brilliant mind of yours off and just listen to my voice, because I’m about to tell you exactly what I want. I want you to come at my hand. I want you to focus only on my body pressed against yours and my hand stroking you until you come so spectacularly that you see stars. I want you to make noise when something feels good. I want you not to worry about reciprocation because trust me, we’ll get there, and the greatest reciprocation there is for me right now, is to know I’m making you feel good. I want to feel you tremble against me before you come, and I want you to arch your hips and thrust into me when you do come…” John continues to growl into Sherlock’s ear, and as he does, he can feel Sherlock’s body reacting to his voice and touch. He speeds up his stroking, and Sherlock lets out a small, pleased cry.

John keeps talking. Sherlock’s hips start to thrust into his hand pumps. Sherlock’s hand grips John’s thigh. He starts to make a low “Ohh..” sound as John increases the pressure. John keeps talking.

“I want you to cry out when you feel it coming over you.”

John squeezes Sherlock’s cock hard and pumps it firmly. Faster and faster.

“I want you to come at my hand, Sherlock. Please, come for me now!”

Sherlock cry is deep and breathy as he climaxes, thrusting into John’s grip three times, ejaculate spilling onto the bed and over John’s hand. When he finally stills, and John helps him ride out the orgasm with gentle strokes, his body trembles.

After a moment, Sherlock seems to catch his breath and he rolls onto his back to look at John. “You…” he says, reaching for John’s hard cock, but his hands are trembling. John shifts to his knees, straddling Sherlock, and braces himself with a hand by the pillow so he hovers above Sherlock’s spent body.

“Just kiss me,” he says, as he takes himself in hand and strokes. Sherlock’s hands cup his cheeks and tug their faces close so their lips meet. It doesn’t take John long to climax. Sherlock’s lips tease his, and the smell of Sherlock—sweaty and sticky as they are—envelope John. He only strokes himself a dozen times before he spills onto Sherlock’s stomach, the orgasm starting at his groin and traveling straight up to his lips. Tingles cascade over his body.

He breathes, looking down at his friend and…lover?

“Are you okay?” John gasps.

“Sticky,” Sherlock says with a scrunched nose, and John laughs as he climbs off Sherlock, dashes to the loo to rinse the cloth, and then returns to thoroughly wipe them both down. Just as soon as they’re clean, Sherlock is drawing the comforter around both their exhausted bodies. He lies close to John, his blue-green eyes searching John’s face.

“Question?” John says with a grin.

“I’ve never understood the distinction between sex and making-love, John. However, this evening with you has been a singularly unique experience when compared to my other sexual encounters.” He pauses, and John loves to watch his brain. “I hypothesize that there is a high correlation between the merit of making-love and a person’s emotional investment in their partner.”

“So, the sex was better than you’ve had before because you care for me.”

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

John laughs and draws Sherlock close, holding him tight. He revels in their skin-to-skin contact. _Finally!_ “Yes, Sherlock, that’s what you said.”

They drift off into an easy sleep—an unspoken question between them finally resolved, although John knows that as lovely as their first sexual encounter has been, they’ve only just opened themselves up to a whole new set of struggles and frustrations. But Grimm is probably dead (or at least he’s wishing he is, after that fall), and John’s hands are mostly healed from his ordeal in the basement, and for the time being, his mad Sherlock is settled against him, safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a short Epilogue to this story that I will be posting tomorrow morning. :)


	7. Epilogue

In the morning, Sherlock makes tea. John skims through the paper, looking for the media’s take on the rather unexpected close of the Grimm case. Anything involving Sherlock is bound to capture plenty of attention these days, and this story, as John expected, is front page news (and second and third page). Grimm did not survive the fall into the basement, and while the papers do not precisely describe the cause-of-death, John garners enough from the multiple instances of the word “impale.” 

“Fitting, wasn’t it?” John says aloud. 

Sherlock hums in reply. He is carefully inspecting three mold cultures lined up on the windowsill while he waits for the water to boil. John notices that one of the mold cultures is the exact purple-blue of Sherlock’s bruised cheekbone. He shakes his head, trying to dispel the image of Sherlock’s face covered in fuzzy mold…

“Grimm’s death. Stamping his foot right through the floorboards and falling like that? Couldn’t have been better poetic irony, I don’t think.”

Sherlock straightens from his inspections and a brief look of confusion crosses his face. “Why’s that?”

John stops reading. He glances up at Sherlock, carefully, and sees immediately that his friend has not missed his own mistake. He’s forgotten something again. The kettle clicks. Sherlock plucks two mugs from the drying rack and sets them on the counter a little too hard.

“It scares me when you do this,” John says. He wants to bring it up. He wants Sherlock to tell him the secret. After what they shared last night, surely they’re beyond keeping secrets now?

“Why John. Tell me why.” Sherlock is sharp and curt in his movements as he makes tea.

“Because you never forget anything you don’t want to. And it’s not just the forgetting that I’ve noticed.”

“No!” Sherlock slams the kettle down. His back is to John. His voice goes low. “Why was Grimm’s death fitting?”

John folds the paper and puts it down. “In the late 19th Century versions of the tale, Rumpelstiltskin flies into a rage when the Queen guesses his name correctly, and he slams his foot into the ground so hard that he falls through the Earth and into Hell.” John waits for Sherlock to reply, but when nothing comes, he ventures: “Sherlock, you must have read a hundred different re-tellings of that story…”

John is expecting a tantrum. He’s expecting denial, and a raised voice, followed by a fight and possibly a long walk to cool-off. His chest clenches though, when all he gets is silence and Sherlock’s trembling shoulders. John is up and moving to his friend, wrapping his arms around his pajama clad body. John’s a little panicked, too. This is not his Sherlock. This is the side of Sherlock that John’s been afraid of ever since his return six months ago. 

“You need to tell me what’s going on. No more waiting. Now.”

Sherlock nods. John takes his tea and motions to the sitting room, where they each settle in their chairs. Sherlock leans forward. His face is pale and his hands worry the handle of his warm mug.

“When I was away—and I owe you a full explanation of that time, as well—,” Sherlock begins, “I came into some trouble. You already know this. My bad knee. My hand that was crushed. Scars that I know you’ve noticed. There’s more, of course. But the worst was a car accident in Berlin. My neck gets sore because I never quite healed from the whiplash—and maybe there’s more damage there too—but what pertains to this conversation is my head. I was driving a 1982 Volkswagen. No airbags. I impacted a motorbike. It came through my front windshield. Something…maybe it was the exhaust pipe, or a fender, I can’t be sure…but something hit my head. Here.”

Sherlock puts his tea on the table and offers his hand; John scoots forward and drops to his knees before his friend. Sherlock takes his hand and guides it to just a few inches into his front hair line. John’s fingers search through the thick curls until he finds a ridge on Sherlock’s scalp—a major head trauma badly healed about six inches long. John presses along the ridge and his stomach drops when he realizes from the contours that there may be a cranial fracture beneath. He draws his hand back.

“Sherlock this is right across your frontal lobe. It’s the part of your brain that controls reasoning, judgement, your emotions, speech, and memory. Do you realize how serious an injury this is?”

Sherlock answers with moist eyes that don’t quite meet John’s. 

“This is why you’ve been isolating yourself,” John says.

“I have brain damage, John. Some days I think it’s getting better, but then I’ll forget…” Sherlock shakes his head. “I couldn’t solve the Grimm case. You almost died because I couldn’t solve that case. I can’t help but wonder if there was something so obvious in front of me…if I could have prevented—”

“No, don’t do that. It’s not fair.”

They sit in silence for a moment, just watching each other. Then John shuffles forward to between Sherlock’s legs and wraps his arms around his torso. Sherlock doesn’t respond at first, but after a moment, he curls around John, resting his forehead on John’s shoulder. John can feel his friend’s tension through his back and shoulders as he soothingly runs his hands up and down. Sherlock is scared. And, John realizes from his silence, Sherlock is ashamed.

“We’ll make it better, Sherlock. Together, we’ll tackle it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sequel, yes?


End file.
